The Aztec Isle
by Black Sands Britannica
Summary: Rudder problems send Jack on a locked course back to Port Royal, and the noose, unless he gets a blacksmith. But Will is distracted by prowlers with Aztec loot on their minds. Elizabeth sleuths, Bootstrap resurfaces, and legends collide. The gold calls...
1. Jumping to Conclusions

(Disclaimer: We do not sail on the ownership. ;)

(Author's note: This tale takes place the night of the day after the day Jack sailed off into the horizon in the first film, savvy?)

(note 2: This was co-written with Djinneya)

(Pairings: Will/Elizabeth, Key Doggie/OC, Bootstrap/Blackstrap)

* * *

**Pirates of the Caribbean 2**

**===The Aztec Isle===**

* * *

=Chapter 1: Jumping to Conclusions=

* * *

_Alright, this was most certainly, definitely, and beyond the least whisper of doubt…. 'not' the right fork in the road, _Jack concluded in growing frustration. Whipping around, his long cloak fluttering, the pirate drifted back up the alleyway, his gaze flicking back and forth between the rows of shops, houses, and suchlike on either side. He paused midway along his twice-traveled path, the leather of his boots pressing hard into his toes as he rose up a few measly inches, squinting hard. _Curse this miserable murk! _Jack growled silently. The fog added a most unwelcome layer of difficulty. It contentedly settled just above his head, which was (and perhaps not coincidentally) at the very same level as most of the shops' signboards.

Turning the corner, back at the fork, Jack took the other road, his pace quickening with impatience. _Let us see now… the butcher's, a bakery..._ Jack stopped at the last of the three closely crammed shops, peering at its low, oak sign, with a butter-yellow candle painted on it. ..._and a chandler's shop. Now was that deliberate?,_ Jack wondered. An amused smile turned up one edge of his roguish mustache, before vanishing just as unpredictably, being replaced by a more sober expression, as he continued down the twisting cobblestone road.

Another block, another byway, and he found himself facing a well. A short, tidy, well-built, wooden-roofed well. The very _same _short, tidy, well-built, wooden-roofed well he'd found himself facing a quarter hour ago. _The devil take it; I'm going in circles! _Jack seethed. _No, boxes, _he corrected himself; _Aland it's always, 'boxes'. _

Unable to stifle the urge, Jack kicked the road resentfully, adding a new scuff to his boot, scattering several pebbles, and disturbing a small gust of dirt and straw. Just as he began to turn back, the captain froze, spinning around again. Dropping down on one knee, he snatched up a handful of the path below, just to make sure. As the grit and dust fell between his fingers, he stood up slowly, with a curious expression forming. A dirt road. _It __was __a dirt road, wasn't it? _he recalled. High spirits returning, Jack strode off down the pebbly byway.

It turned out to be a scattered, mazy romp, leading past strewn pottery, an overturned construction frame, assorted pushcarts, and, eventually and satisfactorily, a familiar little side corner square.

Jack brushed blithely through the double-arched hall framing the scene. But as he stepped out into the open, a looming shadow brandishing a blunt weapon came at him from the left. Caught completely off guard, the captain jerked backward, stumbling over the stone steps as he instinctively yanked his pistol from his belt, aiming it squarely at… the… _statue_.

Yes, it was just a bronze sculpture wielding a common work hammer. No threat at all. In fact, he was good news, since apart from _not_ being some villain trying to ambush passersby, he was the first actual sign that Jack had reached his destination. The second sign had an anvil, hammer, and tongs painted on it, and was swaying lazily in the breeze.

Relieved, but feeling sufficiently ridiculous, Jack returned his pistol to his belt, and drew towards the front doors of Brown's Smithy. He groped around in the dark for the door-handle. Surprisingly, it swung open effortlessly, so much so that he had to catch it to prevent a noise. Arm following hand and the rest following that, Jack slipped inside, closing it almost all the way, but not quite, behind himself.

Gently turning, the pirate scanned the surrounds that lay before him. Dusty, still, and silent; right how he'd left it. Though something was amiss. Perhaps not evidently, but Jack could still sense it. _The back door's open,_ he noticed. Not normally _such _a disturbing thing, especially n the searing Caribbean, but tonight, for some reason, it struck a definite note of unease.

Not bothering with the wagon ramp, Jack jumped off the ledge, landed softly on the hay underfoot, and stepped cautiously forward. Three cagey steps later, the captain halted. It wasn't a sound nor movement that made him pause, it was a feeling. A subconscious sixth sense, an odd wash of apprehension...

Jack had precious little time to dwell on this premonition, since one moment later, he was smacked full to the floor, all the breath knocked out of him at once. His reflexes immediately took control, and Jack rolled over sharply, capsizing the weight atop him. His attacker hit the ground hard, and while the tables were temporarily turned, Jack strove to get a proper hold on him. But the attacker never gave him that chance. Instead, he used their momentum to his advantage by rolling again, pinning Jack down again.

In the thick, pitchy shadows they wrestled in, Jack couldn't tell a thing about his foe's face, apart from a vague outline. Temporarily ignoring the lancing pain in his shoulders and back from hitting the floor so hard; Jack jammed a knee into his attacker's chest, offsetting him long enough to reel to the left, putting some space between them.

Using his space of leeway to scramble to his knees, and almost tripping over his long, dust covered cape, Jack saw that his foe was facing the other way now. His shoulders were curled over in a hunch that made Jack wonder for a split-second just how hard he'd taken that last blow. But on the last half of the split-second, Jack spotted what his attacker was looking at. A cutlass, thrown in the scuffle, but not nearly far enough. Meters at most. Acting fast, Jack lunged. This wouldn't end in blood if he could help it. _Not mine, anyway_, he mentally added.

The attacker's reflexes were faster though, and last moment, he veered away from the sword, letting Jack stumble forwards. Trying to kill the force of his charge, Jack rolled onto and over his left shoulder, just overshooting the sword, and landing parallel to his opponent.

Unsteadily pirouetting to face each other, both came to a pause; both sets of eyes locking on the weapon lying on the ground directly between them.

It was the unknown combatant who dived first, and Jack next.

It was mere fortune that the hilt was facing towards Jack, or else he wouldn't have reached it first. It was mere misfortune that his boot got tangled on his cape just then, tripping him to the dirt floor and sending the blade skidding across the room to land with a clatter behind a pile of crates. _Darn_, Jack cursed, before suddenly remembering about his own cutlass. _Oh, right_. The captain pulled his black cutlass free from his belt as he tore his cape, which had repositioned itself all wrong, out of his face.

However, his attacker had tumbled into a shaft of moonlight, and as Jack got his first good look at the lean boy with dark curls and a loose cream shirt, he realized abruptly just _who_ it was he'd been mentally meaning to murder.

_Will Turner?_ Jack thought, rising quickly to his elbows.

Before Jack could tell Will who he was, the boy seized one of the four, long, low-set spokes nearby, shoving it to Jack's left, which caused the spoke on Jack's right to collide forcefully with his cranium, knocking the pirate back to the straw-strewn floor. It also knocked the cutlass out of his hand.

Will lost no time in resuming the fight, trying once more to pin the captain's arm behind his back.

Twisting against the thumb, the one weak spot to a one-handed hold, Jack simultaneously threw his head upwards, clouting Will in the face. Besides inflaming the newly acquired throbbing in his own skull, this last move also made an excellent distraction for Jack to wrench free from Will's arm-lock.

Moments later, the battle was decided, as Jack finally managed to get a hold on both of Will's wrists; jerking them tautly to the left. Jack then shoved his elbow and forearm into Will's chest on the right, weightily pinning his shoulders hard to the ground, and ending the scrap.

"Checkmate," Jack stated raggedly.


	2. Trouble?

=Chapter 2: Trouble?=

* * *

The moonlight spilling in from the rafters traced over Captain Sparrow's long dreadlocks, making him look like a black widow spider.

"Jack?" Will said, sounding shocked.

_Good thing too_, Jack thought darkly. Brightly, he said, "Aye, nice to see you too! Thought I'd drop in. No idea I'd be dropped _on_."

"For some reason I took you for a _prowler,_" Will shot back sarcastically. Wringing his wrists, he struggled futilely against the pirate's grip. The kid just didn't know when to give up.

"Ah…" Jack purred, "So, this's what ya do wiv your late nights, huh? Stay up to all hours waiting ta pounce _supposed_ robbers?" The barest hint of a smile crossed his face. "Would not a watchdog be a mite more _economical_?"

Will shoved his knee hard into Jack's ribcage, and dizzily scrambled to his feet.

"Hey, ease up, mate," the pirate coughed, "it's jest me." Jack picked up his cutlass, and, with aid from the closest wooden spar, picked himself up as well. "Jest yer ol' friend Captain Jack."

"You were just trying to kill me," Will stated warily, taking a step back.

"Yeah, so sorry-" said Jack, as he massaged his swelling head, "-didn't know it was you."

"You didn't _know_ it was _me_?" Will repeated in disbelief, "So who'd you think it was, Mr. Brown?"

"Well, sheesh, I didn't know you _lived_ here!" Jack replied, looking up anxiously at the back door as it swung back and forth on its hinges.

"Then what, may I ask, were you even _doing _here?" Will demanded.

"Here as in _here_ here, or just the neighborhood here?"

"Do you always answer questions with questions?" Will questioned.

"Do I?" Jack counter-questioned.

"What are you _doing _here, Jack?" Will glanced at the sword in Jack's hand. "Stealing weapons?"

"No, stealing _back_ weapons," Jack corrected, returning his black-hilted cutlass to his belt. "See, the navy wouldn't let me bring me effects to my hanging after they confiscated 'em in Fort Charles' prison, so of course I came back for 'em. Leave no loose ends."

Will looked less than convinced. "You came back, to one of the most heavily fortified ports in the Caribbean, for a second-rate cutlass and an unloaded pistol?" he inquired finally, one eyebrow raised.

"Yeah I-" Sparrow began, before realizing what had just been said. "-second-rate?" he sharply retorted.

"That still doesn't explain why you're _here-_" Just then Will's head snapped swiftly to attention, as though he'd heard something. But he didn't give Jack time to ask _what _before roughly grabbing his arm and pulling them both down into the shadow cast by the ledge encircling the shop.

Seizing the opportunity, Jack asked, "What-?" but before he could finish, Will's bandage-wrapped hand clasped over his mouth. Then Jack heard it, a rusty creaking, like the bow of a sundered tree in the wind. Pivoting his head as much as possible with Will's hand still restricting it, he traced the blacksmith's gaze to the door of the shop. Looming there in the doorway was an outline that could've easily belonged to a Viking of old. He sauntered down the wagon ramp remarkably quietly for an outline so large.

'_He' didn't knock,_ Jack noted quietly, wondering when Will would up and pounce _him_. However the younger man remained where he was, barely breathing, as the new intruder stalked the length of the shop, turning in tight, searching circles every now and again; his oversized weapon catching the moonlight's glint.

At last, the figure ambled out the back way, leaving the captain and craftsman alone once again. Releasing Jack, Will rose to his feet, still gazing toward the now vacant doorway.

Getting up, Jack pulled himself onto the ledge, heading swiftly for the nearest window. Cracking open one of the shutters he looked out past the bars."Are you in some sort of trouble mate?" Jack asked, lightly stroking the braids of his beard. _Either that or the fella just wanted to get his ax sharpened at two in the morning, _he reasoned. _Unlikely_.

Before Jack could catch sight of anything further than the wall of the neighboring building though, Will stepped in front of the window. "Trouble?" the smith asked casually, brushing off the notion that something could be afoot, leaving Jack to assume something undoubtedly _was_.

"Aye, trouble," Jack echoed. "As in, problems, perils, or predicaments of a decidedly unpleasant nature."

Will hesitated. "Not specifically…" There was another noise outside, somewhat less rusty and somewhat more sinister than the last, and at any rate enough to make Will jerk hastily back.

Jack's head tilted skeptically.

Will's glance strayed uneasily back toward the window. "Alright, perhaps," he admitted, "but it doesn't concern you." By the pale window-light, Jack caught a look of dawning suspicion surface on Will's young face. "Does it?" he demanded abruptly, pivoting back to face Jack.

The buccaneer's face shifted unreadably, in the sense of having far too many words crammed on a single page. Crisply, he veered on his heels and started off in another direction. "All dependable on how you define 'it'," he tossed back over his shoulder, along with the tail of his much dust-ridden cape, ridding it of much of the dust.

Jack's roundabout answer must have failed to satisfy Will, for he fell into a close pursuit, stepping all over the captain's shadow. "_'It'_ referring to those prowlers out there," the lad specified, blocking Jack's path.

Jack broke stride only inches away from actual collision with the bristling blacksmith. "Prowlers?" the captain wondered, swaying in place. "Are you always this coherent at two in the morning?" he sighed.

"Are you always this prying at- _Is_ it two in the mor- I don't have time for this." Will grabbed a largish crate, and stalked off.

Feeling slightly slighted, Jack took an unimpeded step forward, before forgetting why he'd been going that way to begin with, and wondering why and where the blacksmith was going now. A quick turn-about revealed that Will was shoving the crate up onto the ledge stretched in front of the front doors. But this still left to speculation the 'why' of the matter.

"Ya know, 'prowl-ers' implies a plural…" Jack called over.

He waited for Will to answer, which he didn't; being preoccupied with pulling himself up after the crate. After shoving it against the doors, Will grabbed a nearby barrel, positioning it beside the crate, then another, followed by a basket of horseshoes.

Jack came closer, not really sure what to make of the mélange. "...and a plural implies more than one solitary late customer wiv an axe…" he continued. "What's our number?"

"You ask too many questions," Will replied warningly.

"The bane of curiosity."

"The killer of cats," Will countered, awkwardly supporting the fast-forming pile with his side and both arms, attempting to hold all in place. "Could you hand me that cart wheel?" he added.

Bounding over to it, Jack fetched up the large wooden wheel, bounded back, and heaved it up to Will, who stayed its roll one-handedly. "And the chair," Will added.

Jack scrambled up the ramp, grabbing the chair in the corner as he went, to join Will at the door. Snatching the chair, Will propped it against the wagon-wheel, making use of these two to brace the rest; freeing himself from the task. Lastly, Will pulled the chains that were anchored into each side of the door to the front of the amassment, and, grabbing one of the horseshoes from the basket, hooked it through the links of both, effectively connecting the two.

"Beautiful barricade, what's it for?" Jack pondered aloud. After catching a glimpse of a shadowy figure appear and disappear outside the window-frame, he added, "And what're these 'prowlers' after?"

Will silenced the pirate with a terse hand motion. "Shh.. listen," he whispered. The clicking sound of shoe-soles on cobbles could just then be heard out the window.

Back to the shadows the two men ducked, and not a moment too soon. For a pair of calloused hands grasped the windowpane, followed by the moonlit profile of their owner, as he leaned swayingly in. A leather skullcap crowned the cove's wild mess of hair, a tattoo- cockatrice perhaps- encircled his sinewy right arm, and judging from the reek of salt and tar (which Jack could detect even from his distance), he was evidently a fellow seafarer. Not such a revealing nor edifying detail; Port Royale abounded in seafarers. Being, after all, a _port_.

This cove was squinting hard now, as his eyes scoured the shadowy smithy. Snappishly, he glanced at the exact screen of shadows Will and Jack crouched behind. _Coincidence, perchance? _Jack hoped, silently pleading with luck (the better sort) to persist. The cove's leonine face screwed to a scowl.

A quarter-minute later, a howling tore the air, no- actually more of a braying- causing the figure at the window to withdraw quick as a lizard, or a cockatrice, if you will.

_Thank you, donkey,_ Jack thought, drawing a deep breath. He saw Will doing likewise, as the lad again rose to his feet. _Tenser than an over-strung fiddle-string. _Jack observed."Do they know you know they're here?" he demanded, rising to confront Will face-to-face. "They do, don't they?" he added, with an undercurrent of roused conspiracy.

"Jack," Will started, "besides this all being none of your affair, it's really nothing I can't cope with."

" Yeah, sure," the pirate laughed. "Lets see, I was able to pin you in what? Less'n two minutes. And that was alone, wiv you with the element of surprise, knowledge of the area, _and_ the high ground."

"Yes, well- not everyone is Captain Jack Sparrow," Will justified defensively, stepping out of the shadows, apparently ignorant of the compliment he'd paid.

"Meaning not _everyone_ is going ta go easy on you."

Will whipped around to confront the smugly smirking pirate. "You weren't-" He paused, let the thought drop in a nettled sort of way, and continued on towards the farther of the two gear-operated whims.

_"Was,_ actually. Random thought here," Jack drawled, sensing that the conversation had begun to sag, rather like wetted canvas, or a loose hammock. "_Norrington_."

"Quite random," Will agreed in an offhanded, distracted, disinterested manner.

"Oh, nothing," Jack resumed, "it's just he seemed quite set and ready to marry Miss Swann hisself before you stepped in. Somethin' of a public embarrassment really, her choosin' _you_ in preference," he hazarded, putting a demeaning emphasis on the 'you'.

"So?"

"So you did steal his girl. Just saying."

"Are you suggesting that a jealous Commodore Norrington would hire a group of vagabonds to murder me as I sleep?" Will retorted with a cutting note of sarcasm; as he navigated the low-protruding spars of the machinery, halting at the axis.

"That or I'm implying it," the captain suggested, still shadowing Will.

"Norrington is a man of honor; he would never do anything so _low,_" Will contended softly, drawing a sword from the circular rack.

Jack took a hasty step back, before realizing black-sheepishly that the blacksmith's attention was fixed entirely on the blade; and rather than using it to run through a certain pirate, he was tucking it into his baldric, not so much as glancing up.

"If Norrington wanted me dead he'd challenge me to an honest duel," Will rationalized, drawing out two more cutlasses; comparing their weight and balance with an artisan's eye. "Or enlist me, and send me on a suicide mission."

"Oh, so _very_ noble. Except for that if he succeeded," Jack ventured, "it _may_ put something of an impediment betwixt him and his would-be _beloved_, so maybe he figured to take ya out quiet."

Caustically, Will thrust one of the swords back into an empty holder, keeping the less elaborate of the two at the ready. "I will _not_ hear such contemptible and ill-founded accusations against the commodore." He turned to give Jack a stern glance. "Not without proof, and not from you."

Jack would've pursued the thread of logic a bit further, but matters were wound tight as it was; close to snapping. So like a good sailor he quite prudently switched tacks. "Wewl alright, fine, say it isn't his ol' self-righteousness Norrington. Maybe it's just the gov'nor. The point is, _someone _seems out ta get you." For good measure he added, "Someone wiv an axe."

Weaving out of the spokes, Will started for the back of the shop without reply.

Jack, not to be deterred, trailed after, though for the life of him he couldn't tell _why_ they were heading behind the desk and counter adjoining the forge. Before he could ask, Will had come to the back wall, and, oddly enough, after a second's search, he ran the tip of his sword up one of the slats in the wall. After a hushed metallic clinking, the blacksmith pulled open to a hand's-breadth… a door. _A door_, Jack echoed wordlessly. And not two feet from where he'd hid that day he'd sought temporary refuge from the King's men… in a quiet, _unsuspecting_ smithy. _Aft-sight hurts. A lot._

"Takin this into consideration, it would be perhaps advisory for you to get out of town for the night," the captain urged furtively. "How 'bout joinin' me aboard the Pearl?" _Alright, too quick, _Jack realized too late.

Will caught the latch on the outward side of the door and hooked it round an inside peg, cutting off access to any and all outside. "Busy," he replied shortly.

The buccaneer's next move was to loop around Will. Catching the sides of his cloak in each hand, setting his left on the wall while his right gripped the edge of the desk, Jack most effectively made an encumbrance of himself. "No, hear me out," he spurred, leaning forward on the writing counter, "the Black Pearl is the _last_ place they'd think ta look for you, well-guarded, in a hidden location, _very _accomidatin', the fastest, best, and loveliest ship in the Caribbean, and not a half-mile from where we stand. More than convenient eh?"

"No thank you," Will refused curtly, at no lack for an alternate escape route. He pivoted himself deftly over the desk, setting off a stack of sideways-laid candles to roll in succession to the floor.

"Why?" Jack wondered, minorly aghast. He resumed his stalk as Will approached the workbench on the other side of the forge.

Will stopped short, but didn't bother turning round as he answered, "You'll forgive me in saying, that hell itself could not wish for a better ally than that accursed ship."

Will had his back to the pirate, so could hardly have noticed the glower creeping across Jack's eagle-edged features; though he may've felt the air temperature drop a degree or two. "I rather think not," muttered Jack in a dark under-breath.

Still unswerving, Will resumed, "Sorry, keep forgetting it's not Barbossa's ship anymore. I'm sure you mean well."

Though however he'd arrived at _that _conclusion was beyond Jack.

Will had plucked up his nondescript jacket off its place on the counter, and pulled it on thoughtfully, but by no means placidly. He turned at last to face Jack, whose wandering hands had found a pile of wood-shavings on the counter-top to meddle with. "I can't simply surrender the shop," Will stated openly.

Jack glanced up shortly, catching the last bits of mahogany he'd been letting slip to the floor through his fabric-wrapped fingers.

There was another quiet crash outside, suspiciously like a felled barrel rolling into a garden wall. Will guardedly took a step toward the still open back door, swaying without hindrance on it's well-oiled hinges. Motioning for Jack to stay put, Will approached it at an angle that kept him well within the shadows, all the while peering out intently. Jack couldn't say what it was the blacksmith saw, or didn't, but he didn't have to wonder long. Will turned half-round, giving the pirate an encouraging nod of the head. "Look, if you mean to leave, now's the time," he whispered urgently.

Sidling forward to join Will, Jack pointedly laid his left forearm on the door, till it aligned squarely with the doorframe, the latch snagging in its slot. Fixing Will with the soberest expression he could manage, not that it mattered now he'd shut out the moon, Jack said, "You're intendin' to be facing, _alone_, an unknown number of suspicious characters- possibly Vikings- out ta probably kill ya, and you're trying ta get rid of your only ally here? What exactly are ya plannin' on? Setting a trap? Challengin' them each separately? Scaring 'em off with all that spinnin' machinery? Forgin' a cannon? Blowin' up the shop? Or maybe just pullin' a pistol on yourself? Worked like a charm last time."

Will irritably whipped around and stalked into a back room.

Jack slouched against the door in waiting, his eyes following him to the room's entryway, but no farther. _What's the whelp about now?_

"Not a tactic I expect you'd consider," came Will's voice from within, risking a not-quite whisper, "but what I had planned on was enlisting the aid of the authorities." A moment and a fumbling sound later, he re-emerged, carrying with him a pair of tall, cuff-less boots. "If you're found here, they'll hang you for a pirate and me under charges of harboring one," he explained, leaning against the counter for support as he drew on the footwear.

"And _this_ is the government you're so prompt to uphold?" Jack scoffed, as he shoved himself off of the door-boards and advanced a pace.

"Just what _are _you doing here anyhow?"

"Can I ask you something," Jack started hesitantly, "not _precisely_ a favor, but similar?"

Will, however, was already heading past the captain, to the window behind the nearest of the gear-worked whims, the one overshadowed by a high shelf to one side. "I knew it," Will muttered so low it was clearly not meant to be heard. "Whatever it is will have to wait till morning, as tonight I'm otherwise occupied," he dismissed, taking in the layout of the alley beyond the window-bars.

"Yes, but in the morning you'll be otherwise _dead,_" Jack stressed in an un-distressed tone, tailing after yet again. "And I can't afford the time nor trouble of locatin' another blacksmith."

Will spun abruptly to confront the pirate. "What's broken?" he demanded beleagueredly; suspicions violently roused.

"Me rudder," Jack admitted.

Will's illumed expression was equally wary and exasperated. "Remorseful, I'm sure, but I'm afraid I can't help you," he declined.

Jack had expected as much. "Can't, or _won't?" _he posed testily.

"Aiding and abetting pirates is unlawful, as you well know," was Will's guarded retort. "Can't."

Jack eased up a bit. "Oh, if _that'_s all," he replied, grinning at the triviality of the matter.

"No." Will's response was adamant, resistant, and wholly conclusive.

_Funny how many sentiments two letters can carry. _"I could make it well worf your while." Jack pressed.

The blacksmith shook his head numbly. "Not very likely."

"Ah, from '_no',_ to '_not likely',_" Jack's grin lengthened optimistically. "We make swift progress."

Will drew in a drawn-out breath. "Find another _opportunity _Jack. Improvise. Isn't that what your sort excel at?" His focus flew back to the window suddenly, as he realized they'd been standing in full view of the alley outside.

_Either that, or employing the old, 'turn a deaf ear to the wheel wanting oil' tactic, _Jack surmised.

Will leaned past the ledge for a better view, his eyes anxiously searching the contours of the alleyway.

"My sort?" Jack mused. "Aye. Yet I should think you'd've learned by now," he persisted, deafly drawing his cutlass, "_never_ to turn your back on a pirate." He brought the cold steel to bear on Will's neck, right below the jowl.


	3. True Friends Stab You in the Front

Chapter 3

-True Friends Stab You in the Front-

* * *

To his credit, Will didn't yelp or jump like others had before on such close acquaintance with a blade. Though from the glare directed over his shoulder, it was evident he'd been taken by surprise. That was not to his credit. "You have my answer," the blacksmith stated quietly.

"Aye, but _it's_ not what I came for," Jack retorted, all amiability vanished. "Now, drop the sword."

Compliantly, Will released the sword he'd been holding, and it fell to the sand and straw underfoot. He raised both hands methodically, in surrender.

Jack gripped Will's shoulder, roughly whirling him around, while keeping his cutlass-edge close to his throat. Next, Jack snatched the hilt of the sword in Will's baldric, half-hidden behind the tail of Will's coat; and drawing it, he pitched the weapon aside.

"Have ya any rope about, say?" Jack inquired, reluctant to take his gaze off the impulsive boy even for the moment it would take to search himself.

"Don't expect to get any help from me," said Will, a little flatly.

"Worry not," Jack responded, inspired by a sudden recollection, "I've better." Smilingly, he fished the military handcuffs he'd nabbed from Fort Charles off of his belt, and dangled them aloft by a forefinger.

Will's face fell.

With snake-strike speed, Jack seized the lad's left wrist; one-handedly clasping on one end of the cuffs, then giving the key already in the lock a sharp turn. This diverted Jack's attention for just an instant, _only an instant_. But it was an instant too long.

Since it was then Will's right, free hand grasped the ivory grip of a sword-hilt protruding off the high shelf's edge, bringing it to bear against Jack's sword, fending Jack's blade away from his neck, and jerking his left hand out of Jack's hold, handcuffs and all; in one crisp motion.

The pirate glanced at the confounded shelf, then back to Will, now armed and at the ready, as he pieced together what'd just occurred. "And you _would_ have a sword up there for no conceivable reason," Jack carped dismally.

"It's your move." As an afterthought, Will offered, "You can still forfeit."

"I can't just step aside and let you escape," quoth the Sparrow.

"I can't let you stop me," Will warned.

"_Can. _I would make it _so_ easy for you."

"You _don't _want to do this," Will perceived.

_Presumptive._

Contradicting Will's words, Jack twisted his sword out from under Will's, and lunged into the first offense without further ado. Will blocked this with a second sword he snatched from the ledge below the windowsill. _They're all over the place!_, seethed Jack, past memories of this virtual armory flooding back as the battle erupted into life.

The two combatants wound their way to the center of the smithy. Presented with the chance, Jack filched a hammer from the rows of tools hanging like icicles off the outer edges of a nearby whim. He chucked it in the blacksmith's general direction, giving himself only barely enough time to grab another, which he also made short and shoddy work of.

Will, who was evidently none too pleased with Jack's misuse and misplacement of his well situated paraphernalia, fought back with the ferocity of a nettled barracuda.

_More like a netted barracuda_, Jack corrected the analogy, for the kid had fallen prey to his goading, dropping his guard and putting all vim into the onslaught. Jack took full advantage of this by knocking Will's blade from his left hand into his right, sending Will's right sword skittering across the floor somewhere and leaving him with only the one.

Jack had been expecting to gain a few seconds as Will switched hands, but these were not to be gained. This puzzled Jack. He wasn't used to fighting a left-handed opponent, especially not one he knew, or thought he knew, to be right-handed. _Ambidextrous menace!, _Jack fumed._Either that or the vile smidge of a smith just doesn' mind inconveniencing hisself a trifle to get the edge over a foe._

These notions were interrupted by a sudden barrage on the front doors, which knocked tautly and stridently against Will's chain-wrapped barricade.

"Put on the kettle mate; we've company!" Jack exclaimed, smiling erratically.

Will gave him a dirty look, as if the entire thing was, in some way or other, his fault.

_And me just a nearly innocent bystander!_ Jack thought, cornering the blacksmith against a large, low-hanging, metal chandelier. Will just ducked under the unlit light fixture, and once on the other side, he thrust it into Jack's chest, knocking him full to the ground.

Glancing sharply up, Jack saw Will awkwardly scaling the out-sized chandelier, making quick work of it's handy candle-hooks to reach the metal pole overhead connecting the whims to the shop's large bellows. From there, Will acrobatically swung himself up, over, and onto one of the higher rafters.

The pounding clatter at the fortified doors ceased. Jack shot upright, and, not wishing to be outdone, snagged his sword back in his belt, and his hands through the closest of the candle-hooks.

Will, still flat on the higher rafter, gave Jack a remorseless smirk, before smartly slicing the rope the chandelier swung by. It fell, throwing Jack on impact and sending him rolling headlong across the dusty floor, for like, the fourth time. _Good thing I left me hat on the Pearl._ Jack pushed his red-and-black-mapped bandanna back out of his eyes and turned to scowl up at the whelp; who was now unsteadily tight-roping the rafter towards the windows. Ignoring the ever-recurring feeling of being the die cast off the table, Jack sprung to his feet, wracking his mind for inspiration.

It came in the form axes, stacked horizontally and parallel, one over the other, on a series of catches nailed to the wall beside the front entrance. Jack didn't wait for an invitation. He scaled them as swift as a ladder's rungs, but the long wooden ax-handles stopped short a few feet shy of the windows above. _Time to improvise._ Jack reached up to snatch his cloak over and off his head. Flinging it over the nearest rafter, and catching the other end of the fabric with the first as it flung over, Jack began walking his booted feet up the wall; at last catching one ankle over the windowsill.

The pounding from outside resumed, this time out the back, unsecured door. Motivated by sheer panic, Jack heaved the rest of himself painfully over the windowpane, plummeting out into the open air. And not a moment too soon, as he could hear the prowlers forcing the door open and storming into the now-empty shop below. Jack dangled like a fish momentarily; his gunpowder-stained fingers still latched onto the rigidly-stretched cape ends. _Perfect_, he griped. But then,_oh, happy Fates! _Jack spied a most fortuitous stack of crates and barrels leant up against the wall. Swinging a boot over, he caught the rim of the top barrel, and reached over with one hand to clutch the window-frame farther down, carefully minding his balance.

Once confident he had the windowsill securely, Jack released the cape, and clambered atop the unsteady stack. Hand over foot, Jack climbed to the flat, shingle-less rooftop. Cautiously rising from a low crouch, he scanned the tranquil setting with a hasty eye.

His quarry was impossible to miss in the stark moonlight. Will was halfway across a narrow archway connecting the smithy roof to that of the shop next door, balancing precariously. Drawing his cutlass as he went, Jack broke into a sprint, meeting the blacksmith on the smithy side of the stone arch.

Will whipped around so briskly that Jack felt sure he should fall victim to some mishap, namely falling. However, Will had better balance than Jack thought. "What part of 'no' don't you understand?" the whelp snarled.

Sparrow stepped out upon the arch with cat-like tread, swinging his cutlass to the front in an eloquent arc. "The context."


	4. Chimney Smoke

=Chapter 4: Chimney Smoke=

* * *

Will's vexation had basically reached the summit. This was insufferable. _Jack_ was insufferable.

Four forms slinking around the bend and into the alley below caught Will's glance, and, regrettably, he caught theirs. _Confounded pirates!_ he cursed, as the four exited around the other wing of the next-door shoe-shop, no doubt looking for some means to reach the rooftops. Sparrow must have seen them too, Will guessed, but if so, his diversion was short-lived. The pirate's focus snapped abruptly back; his daglocks flipsiding in a tangle.

Will didn't wait for Jack to strike the first blow, and caught him off-guard with a low-aimed swing to the legs. Jack jumped aback a bit, avoiding a crippling injury, but not the slender scratch of Will's sword-point across his thigh.

First blood had been drawn.

Swiftly, Will dashed the rest of the way across the arch, but just as his feet struck on the neighboring rooftop, he had to pirouette to catch the singing blade disrupting the air above his left shoulder.

"Please don't drag this on into one of your three hour training sessions," Jack asked wryly, beneath their locked swords.

Twisting the sword-lock vehemently, Will threw off Jack's balance; nearly toppling him off the narrow archway. Over the shingles Will fled; there being no reason to remain, and numerous to not. However, he hadn't made it half the roof-span when Jack once again blocked his path. _That barnacle._

Some battles crawl crackling into existence, like a flint-lit pile of sodden wood, while others simply ignite, like a touched-off cannon. This one was of the latter sort. Offenses and defenses, strikes and counterstrikes, parries, blows, and blocks ensued. "Circle, we circle; like dogs we circle," Jack intoned. "Ya know," he added, "disarming and defeating you _would_ be so much easier if I didn't have to actually take off an arm and a leg."

Unexpectedly twist-ducking under their crossed blades, Will landed Jack a hard blow to the ribs with his elbow, then veered behind him. It was only after he'd positioned himself between the buccaneer and the arch-arm to the smithy that he caught sight of a smallish band of prowlers, coming across the smithy roof. _They must've come up the outer stair, _Will reckoned. Leaving him betwixt the hammer and the anvil, so to speak. _This'll never do._ Turning to the right, Will took a few hasty paces backwards, then, setting his jaw, took off at a dash between Jack and the prowlers. Ignoring the startled protests that arose from the gathering band, he sprung off the rooftop's edge, only just before his boots struck open air.

The blacksmith was inches shy of his mark, but he caught the rim of the neighboring roof with his elbows mid-plummet, his chin jarring viciously against the shingling. Will struggled and scrabbled fiercely, but the walls of the abandoned glass-shop were wood, rather than stone or brick, and lacked traction enough for any footing.

Moments afterward, Will heard a thud and the scuff of falling shingles nearby, and with a twist of the now-aching neck, he made out a pair of approaching boots. A half-glance up told him Jack was still connected to them. _A fact in want of remedy, _Will resolved. As soon as the musketeer-cuffed boots came close enough, the dangling blacksmith took a calculated risk; releasing the roof with one arm to make a harsh swipe at the tan boots, with the sword still clasped between his white-knuckled fingers.

The pirate jumped back a step, out of range of the smith's blade. "Hey! Cut that out- I mean- belay that!" With careful timing, he spitefully brought his boot-sole down on Will's blade, avoiding his second stab at defeating him, and ensuring that there'd not follow a third.

With a strangled hiss, Will attempted to wrest his sword free, but the pirate captain, ignoring him, stooped down and roughly pried the brass hilt from his grasp. Will glared up unsmilingly as Jack tucked the cutlass between his belt-strap and sash.

Will's gaze dropped about sixteen feet to the narrow footpath below…

"My advice," Jack warned casually, "don't." And then, dropping to a crouch, he offered Will a linen-bound hand.

Will regarded it rather like a fox would a snare. Then he spotted the band of prowlers over the unsuspecting pirate's shoulder. They were coming over the far end of the shoe shop onto a second arch leading to the glass-shop, intercepting the only visible escape route off their raised island of shingles.

Jack must've caught Will's perturbed expression, for he lashed around briskly, retracting his proffered aid. For one rigid instant Will wondered if he intended to engage the approaching band single-handedly.

"Do you trust me?" Jack's voice demanded, breaking into Will's misgivings.

The blacksmith stared askance. "What _do _you take me for?"

"Well, never mind." With that, Jack's boot came down on Will's shoulder, followed by his full weight, as he began descending him like a ladder.

A tide of protests swelled to mind, but before Will could voice any, his elbows gave out under the strain, leaving him less than an instant to catch the eaves. This saved them both a nasty, two-story plummet to their untimely, unnatural deaths.

"Steady aloft!" Jack cautioned coolly, clinging to Will's knees now like ivy. Just as the blacksmith figured his fingers were verging on snapping, the captain slid down to his ankles, then mercifully released his latch, dropping inelegantly the last several feet to the cobblestones underfoot. "Jump!" Jack barked, fumbling to his feet.

"I thought you advised against that!"

"Don't worry," chimed the pirate; "I'll catch you!" he assured.

"_That's_ what worries me," Will disclosed, striving futilely to draw himself up. His left elbow slipped again as he tried clamping it back over the shingling; mostly thanks to the meddlesome manacles still half-locked onto that wrist.

"It's me or them!" the captain goaded.

_Nice __having an option, _the smith restrained himself from retorting.

A shadow fell over Will's sleeve, draping down the glass-shop wall to meld with the deeper haze below. Looking up, the blacksmith saw a formidable, familiar, skull-capped silhouette blocking the moon. After tossing his head back toward his mates behind, the sailor overhead remarked evenly, "He's got very good arms."

Will made a harried decision, and let go of the eaves.

The cove above made a rapid grab for him, somehow managing to snag the smith's wrist the moment before he dropped. He brusquely yanked Will up a foot or three, but Will threw his whole weight, such as it was, into swinging himself around, twisting against the seafarer's thumb.

Will fell sway-sidedly in a sort of wayward plunge, and Jack must've dove to catch him, but even so, the impact sent them both tumbling in a mangled heap. Will rolled off the pirate and onto the pavement, ending up on his back; only just in time to glimpse the sharp jerk of the skullcapped cove's scraggly mane above, as he signaled his group back away from the eaves.

Jack's head broke into view, regrettably unbroken. "Alright then, yes?" inquired the unconventional buccaneer, stooping over the blacksmith.

"Smashing," Will returned curtly.

"Good." So saying, Sparrow pulled him to his feet, then, without warning, yanked both of his arms behind his back. Seizing the dangling fetters, he clapped the free end onto Will's right wrist, before nabbing the key still lodged in the lock of the first cuff.

Ere Jack could twist the key in the second shackle-lock, Will's left-hand fingertips found the pirate's sheathed cutlass-hilt. With a viperous motion Will half-drew the blade, pressing it bitingly backwards into the chest of his captor. He could feel the pirate stiffen tensely behind him.

"Let go," Jack commanded hoarsely, "not a suggestion."

"After you," the half-hostage invited, pressing the blade closer, to drive in the point.

Jack's left hand flew reflexively to the hilt then, over Will's; and he strove to shove the blade away from his open vest and back in its strap.

The blade slid back as Will abruptly released the hilt, as much as possible with Jack having the upper hand. Snapping his right wrist out of the still un-locked cuff, Will reeled forcefully to the left. Right hand now free, and with his enemy once more before him, it was a short matter to snitch his own sword from Jack's belt. He raised it to just aside the beads of the captain's snake-tongued beard.

Jack, obviously thinking fast and acting faster, released Will's hand, which the smith was more than grateful to retrieve. No one could say Jack wasn't smart _sometimes._ He retreated hastily about a blade's length, then drew his own black cutlass.

Pacing backwards deliberately, sword held at the defensive, Will began retreating up the seaward-slanting alley. Will was taking heed now of Jack's; _never-turn-your-back-on-a-pirate _counsel, gauging the time and distance required till making a dash would be least chancy.

Something shifted behind the buccaneer's bandannad head; deepening the shades at the far alley-way exit, and distracting Will. "Jack, behind you!" he alerted snappishly.

The pirate acted his part beautifully, wheeling around mid-warning to dodge and counter the blow dealt from behind by a tall, bayonet-brandishing prowler. From his vantage Will could see at least two other prowlers hard on the heels of the first. _The odds are a bit biased, _the blacksmith noted, but then he recollected that not three moments earlier Jack had tried clapping him in irons. _Besides which, it's not Jack they're after_, Will determined, as he promptly made a dash for it. _I think._

"Thanks- mate?" Will could hear Jack's voice falter and dissolve into the night air, and didn't bother glancing back as Jack added, considerably louder, "Um, quick, somebody, stop him!"

Will tore around the bend in the alley, into another, and from there onto the crack-cobbled thoroughfare; his pulse pounding in his throat with every stride. _Alone at last! _It was a sheerly bracing sensation, yet, sadly, all too short-lived. Out of the tail of his eye Will spied the four prowlers he had left on the glass-shop rooftop swerve from a side path onto the road behind him. Buying himself a moment of leeway, Will dove around the corner building of the short street.

Salvation occurred in the form of a ladder, if two uneven poles clapped together by slabs of oddly-spaced, nailed-in, and tied-on driftwood for rungs could qualify. It was leant up against a neatly-mortared brick building. Without much ado, the way it is when one is being pursued on a dark night by strangers and the strange, Will sheathed his cutlass and scaled the mismatched steps.

Topside shortly, all but his last boot, Will nearly knocked the ladder down to the thoroughfare, but then thought better. Clutching the splintery sides of the ladder instead, he dragged it up and away from the eaves, laying it flat beside him on the starkly slanted rooftop.

Snatching one last glance below, Will was a bit taken aback by what he saw, or rather, didn't. The byway was vacant, utterly unoccupied by men or pirates of any sort. Directly below, a loose door cavorted on its iron pivots, snapping dully against the low end of an off-tilt signboard.

A last latecomer tore round the bend, clearly short of breath; his distinctive dreadlocks flicking wildly every which way as he scoured the path ahead.

Will looked around keenly for somewhere to hide from Jack Sparrow's hawk-eyed scrutiny. It was a long, bare, steep, red-shingled roof, _not many prospects_, he assessed. Then he snatched sight of a darker, inward-crumbling square of roof, not two yards away- a cannon-hole. _Hence the fortuitous ladder. _The hole was too far away to be of much help. The other option Will could conjure then, jumping over the ridge to the other side of the roof, was also out of the question.

Just as he'd concluded these dead-end observations, which had taken less time than it would for dice to settle from a toss, Will noticed a short stone chimney protruding from the roof about an arm's reach above him.

Occasioning the rise, to rise to the occasion, Will slipped behind the chimney. Propping his back against it's solid warmth, he tucked his knees into his chest and ducked his head low. Hopefully, the wafting smoke would help hide him till it was most prudent to proceed. _But when would that be? _

It was then, almost involuntarily, that Will's glance fell back to the cannon-hole. _Why would the door be open when the hearth is lit? _he wondered the prowlers, and their unexplained disappearance down below, Will sprung unsteadily to his feet, catching the chimney-rim to keep his balance. The next, and most obvious course, of course, would be to climb back down the ladder to the alley-path, were it not for a certain technicality by name of Captain Jack Sparrow. Even if the pirate had missed seeing him before, there remained little remedy now. The blighter even had the audacity to _wave_.

A dull, heavy rasp sounded from below the cannon-hole, confirming Will's suspicion, and making him draw back behind the cover of smog. He groped desperately for a plan. Going down was risky. Staying put was riski_er_. Suddenly, Will had it. He crept recklessly back toward the ladder he'd left on the eaves. Grabbing it, the blacksmith retraced his path, careful not to let either end of the ladder dip or scrape against the ferruginous shingles.

"Still aloft!" noted a harsh yet subdued voice, from the lower right.

Not unduly agitated at the sight of a close-cropped head vanishing back into the rooftop cannon-hole, Will quickened his pace.

With no second warning, the roofing around the cannon-hole erupted, boards, shingles, and splinters sent sailing by the impact of an ax-blade slicing through the moonlight.

Will jumped to the other side of the roof's ridge, plunging into the shadow it cast. He skidded down the side of the roof, halting only as he struck the eaves. As he was lowering the ladder though, a new, rash thought planted itself in Will's head. Lifting the ladder back up, he stretched it out until the bottom rung tapped the eaves of a neighboring, pyramid-shaped roof. With a small, elated thrill, Will realized, _It reaches. _Setting the ladder down gently yet securely between the two rooftops, Will stepped one boot out onto the horizontal rungs.

The second step was considerably harder. 'Not looking down' was not an option; two stories up over a packed-dirt road was not a thing to be heedlessly overlooked.

As Will chancily advanced, a dogged conflict ensued between his nerve and nerves, and though outnumbered by these last, the former, being firmer, won out. Will nearly made it a full third of the way across the divide, when he saw out of the tail of his eye the canter of shadows on the rooftop he'd just left, rising over the ridge like ant-lions from the sands.

Will stooped to grasp the rough wooden rung directly in front of the one he perched on, then, slipping through the space between the two, he dropped down to dangle midair. He couldn't track the prowlers' progress anymore, but, incidentally, they couldn't track his. Hand over hand, rung to rung, silently, swiftly, successively; Will monkey-barred his way along the underside of the abnormally-runged ladder.

"'e's bloomin' barmy, 'e is!" a knowledgeable authority declared from the other roof, as if cued. Goaded a bit by this, Will finally reached the thatched eaves, and clutching them hard, he battled one elbow over the edge, followed by the second, before wrenching himself up the rest of the way.

Just then, the ladder was snatched off and away from the eaves by the prowlers at the other end, sort of sinking Will's plan of reusing it as a link to other rooftops and a means to cut off further pursuit. He was essentially marooned. On a rooftop. Spotting a jaunty gable window poking out of the left side of the pyramidal roof, Will started for that, wishing against hope that it was unlocked.

Abruptly, the shutters flung open, clattering against their frame. Popping out like a Jack-in-the-box, was Jack. Sparrow's metallic grin caught the glim-of-moon, as he crawled out onto Will's rooftop.


	5. Strangers and the Strange

=Chapter 5: Strangers and the Strange=

* * *

"Surrender?" the uncommonly poised pirate requested, questing a little farther out of the gable's cover.

"Sorry," Will declined, unsheathing his sword as he backed off.

Reproachfully, Jack sighed, "Bother." And it was then, as he shook his head forlornly, that he spotted the men below, three prowlers; all heading for the door of the building he and Will were atop.

"Look," Will declared, facing Jack squarely and lowering his own blade in example, "if we don't settle this before they arrive-"

"My thoughts exactly," Jack assured, "I accept your surrender."

Will raised his sword again. "Those _weren't _my thoughts exactly."

"Then _exactly_ what were they?"

"Truce?"

Jack considered this tantalizing offer. "…Temporary," he decided finally.

"Right," Will assented, re-sheathing his sword with emphasis.

Jack nodded amiably, and his stance eased up a trifle, but he still held his blade at the ready. "Right," Jack echoed casually, "plan of action?"

Will made a quick visual sweep of the surrounds. "There's a window," he remarked dourly.

"Yes and no," Jack said. "Any other insights in sight?" A noise drew Jack's focus to the pointed top of the pyramid roof. There, lilting lyrically in the wind, was a silvery weathervane, a mythological centaur with a strung bow-and-arrow.

Will's gaze fell from the distinctive weathervane to the street below. "How many are down there?" he asked, a bit too casually.

Jack's looked down too. The three prowlers he'd left pounding at the front door of the house had been joined by four more, with Will's ladder. _Not good._ "Too many," Jack replied dourly.

"So what do you propose?" Will asked promptly.

"Well, the way I figure, they'll be less liable to harm eiver of us, if they were to think _I _was liable to do _you _harm." The friendly smile creeping to Jack's lips dissolved suspiciously, as he saw Will freeze in his tracks, several feet farther away than he'd just been. "That's how I figure it leastways," Jack continued, fluidly masking his misgivings. "Course we'll have to make it authentic-like, so if you'd just pass me yer cutlass we'll pull it off as: if they'd not let us alone I'd gully you and none would have means to prevent it."

Will gave the pirate a sidelong look. "Yes, and none would have means to prevent it," he echoed.

"You've yet to offer a better suggestion, which suggests you haven't one," Jack cited half-logically.

Will's alternative was shabbily thought-out. "You can go back in through that window and find some place to hide, while I draw them off," he hurriedly outlined, taking another few steps away in illustration.

"Draw 'em off where?" Sparrow demanded, not bothering to follow. From his vantage, he couldn't see that there was anywhere to follow _to,_ and if the whelp thought he could trick him away from the window, he had best re-think his petty stratagem.

"Off," Will illuminated; almost to the second corner now.

Jack's gaze dipped once more over the roof-rim, as he added and summed up the meters that composed the steep wall. "Do be rational, Will," he chided.

"Odd, coming from you." The kid was out of sight now; on the opposite side of the pyramidal rise.

_Perhaps looking for another window? _Jack guessed, but from what he'd seen from within the attic, _there's only the one. _"You find my rationale flawed?" he queried.

"I never found it to begin with," was Will's comeback, followed by the rapid snap of boot-fall.

Jack almost turned the corner of the roof himself, just to see what Will up to, when the creak of the ladder on the roof's rim reminded him that several of the prowlers were already half-way aloft. Two choices presented themselves: 1; follow Will's plan, _not that his plans ever work_, 2; follow Will, and hope he really did have another escape route, _only if his plans don't work, how'd that work out either? _Not bothering to stick around and untangle the paradox he'd invented, Jack broke into a run around the roof's right-hand side.

Bafflingly enough, when he rounded the curve of roof, Jack saw that Will's scheme was not so very foundless after all. _Just groundless_. A few feet away, was a plain wood-block pulley supporting a thin rope clothesline, laden profusely with articles of its namesake and stretched taut across to a balcony window at the other side. Dangling from one of the overlapping cords, amid the wash, was one William Turner.

Will kicked forcibly against the painted-plank surface of the building's wall, propelling himself a meter or so backwards from the eaves. Jack sprung to action sooner than immediately, forsaking caution; intent solely on stopping the lad before- but he was too late.

Catching the second clothesline as well, Mr. Turner risked letting go with one hand to wrest the brass cutlass-hilt from his baldric. He unwieldily sliced the twofold ropes directly in front of him, and plunged into a pendulum-form fall.

The balcony on the other side must have been fairly wide, since seeing as Will was up and running shortly after slipping down the laundry-strung ropes, it went to reason, _or wherever_; he must not've cracked his skull on the opposite wall.

_Off Scot-free_. _Not quite fair really; he's not even Scotch, _Jack griped, seeing as his own fortunes were in their own right sagging. But this mulling and mooning mindset was interrupted by the scuffing approach of the 'prowlers', so labeled.

Turning from the now pointless pulley, Jack saw that the prowlers were splitting up and sweeping over the small roof in unison. _Blast and breakage, _Jack cursed, swiftly exploring his options, of which there were very few, less by the moment, and each as improbable as they were impossible. The clothesline was cut, the prowlers were in the way of both window and ladder, and, as already mentioned, it was a two story drop. In short, he was cornered. With a mounting feeling of futility, the pirate glanced back over his shoulder- and caught sight of something. The corner of his deranged mustache twitched a touch, and by the time he turned to confront the prowlers, the budding expression had ripened into an all-out grin.

Snapping a smart, savvy salute, Jack stepped backwards into a free-fall off the thatched eaves. He snatched the eaves as he plunged, and kicked in the shutters of the window he'd glimpsed moments before; hearing the latch snap beneath his boot-soles. Jack's headlong tumble into the excusably dark interior of the room ended badly, with quite a few gauging splinters in his bandaged hand. He righted himself hastily, wondering why his ears wouldn't stop ringing. It was only then he realized that someone was screaming; a shrill sort of someone; _a baby_?

Two quick steps across the small room brought him to the cradle, where he wasted no time in stifling the infant's scream with the flat of one palm. "Shush, little baby, don't say a word, cause we'll both be dead if those nasty Vikings heard..." he murmured in its penny-sized ear in a desperate under-breath.

It stared at him with its round, baby blues, just stared at him, like he was a freak in a circus sideshow.

Jack thought. If he left it here, it'd start yammering again, and give him away. So he did the only thing he could think of, besides gagging the infant. Scooping up the wee bundle and tucking it under an arm, while still keeping his hand over its toothless mouth, Jack started in a dash for the stairwell.

He made short work of stumbling down the haplessly creaky wood-slab steps, and from there, he unbolted the front door, then bolted out of it, right past a prowler that must have been stationed there to guard it. He didn't make the best time chasing Jack, and Jack guessed he'd have the worse time of it when his mates found out his blunder. But the captain had problems of his own, for although he'd escaped the house alright, he'd lost time, which was irretrievable, and more importantly, Will, whom hopefully; wasn't.

Not to mention the babe. Jack peeked down at the little face hidden under his vest, then looked back the way he came. "Um, hate to tell ya this, but I think I've lost yer house," he muttered.

The baby started wailing again.

"Er- not to worry! I'll find you another one!" Jack promised. "Just please, don't cry," he begged.

It whimpered, and then fell silent.

"Ooh, good, very good! House, house, house..." Jack muttered, searching the street for a building that didn't look like it's roof was about to fall in, which was surprisingly hard to find. "Oh please, oh please, oh- ah! Here we are!" Jack dashed in. He saw a ton of guts strewn over a large counter, and a huge metal cleaver stuck in a pig-sized cutting board. Jack dashed out of the butchery.

Five doors down, he tried his luck again. There was a pump, and a sink. "See, this is nice, they have have running water!" Jack said, setting the baby down in the sink. It didn't look very comfortable, so he slipped off his vest, and shoved it under the baby. "There, nice and cozy, if not a trifle wet. I was born on a ship; I sympathize."

The babe looked frightened.

Jack just hoped that this was the sort of nice house that nice people lived in, instead of un-nice baby-eating ogres or anything. "Lovely meeting you," he cooed, "but I really must go now, to- catch you a mockingbird. But I'll be back! I just- won't- _look_ like me. Just be good and sit tight, rockabye, whatever it is you things do." Before he had to endure one more awkward moment, Jack dashed out of the house.

Now for Will. Being better used to playing the fox's part himself, Jack's instincts ran less along the lines of blindly hounding the boy, and more along those of reviewing Will's options, with the fox's eye, as it were. _Right then, the bridge. _For if Will was headed for the fort, as he'd said earlier, _he'd have to come cross the bridge, right? Unless… _Jack deliberated, _there's some other way 'round besides the bridge… or unless Will decides to lay low till morning… and then there's that small difficulty of actually _finding _the bridge again..._ After all, Jack wasn't the one who'd lived and worked in this town for the past eight years.

At precisely that moment, a cat's shriek tore through the fogs and damps of the night air like a banshee's death-note, solving all the pirate's problems. Well, maybe not _all _his problems. But enough. _That way_, Jack thought perkily. Matters being so settled, the captain departed, like drafts in the doldrums.

_Well __that's __went and gone and done it. Brilliant, just brilliant Will, _he reproached himself, rising painfully from his scraping fall_. _But to be fair, how could he have suspected that darn cat would be napping in the middle of the pathway, lying in wait for the sole, sinister purpose of tripping up unwary passersby? Will could've sworn he'd seen that same coal-pelted feline somewhere before... just before Barbossa's crew had raided Port Royal, actually. Not that he was superstitious or anything.

Making up for moments lost, the blacksmith turned another corner. His thoughts flew back to trying to recall the way from the main-road to the weathervane-capped washhouse, in reverse. Just as he'd begun to believe he'd taken a wrong turn back there, Will's racing feet landed on the coolly, lantern-lit cobblestones of the main-road.

Several byways and boulevards later, Will at long last sighted Fort Charles rising starkly against the moonlit cliffside, and never before had that fairly ordinary sight filled him with such juvenile glee. Better yet, he saw, sparing a peek around for the first time since he'd started his mad dash, it would appear he'd lost his pursuers. Both sets. _Finally!_

So, gasping shallowly for a long-neglected breath of sea air, Will paced himself, falling back to a brisk stride. He allowed himself a small smile. It was all downhill- well, figuratively speaking, considering the fort was _up_hill- from here. His euphoria at being so close to his goal cooled by degrees, however, as he realized something was different. Something was missing.

Namely, the lantern-lights.

All the lanterns on this curving sea-side street, or for that matter, anywhere in the vicinity of the fort, had been doused- either that or never lit to begin with. Will was placing his coinage on 'doused'; unsettling notion though it be.

The farther Will strayed off the lantern-lit streets, onto those that weren't, the darker things grew. But as they say, it's always darkest before it turns light…

Or, in Will's luckless case, before it turns absolutely pitch black.

Jack caught Will as he slumped down, and quickly checked the kid's wrist for a pulse. When you hit someone on the head _that _hard with the butt of a pistol, you always run the risk of killing them, even if you're just aiming to daze. Most of the time though, you just bruise them.

Before Jack could tell one way or another, he heard footfall behind him. Grasping Will over his shoulder with one arm, and wrapping his other arm around Will's waist, Jack struggled off.

The prowlers caught up too quickly, and surrounded Jack and his luggage like a pack of hungry sharks.

"This here is a public avenue, and your obstruction of it is entirely unlawful," Jack warned. Not that he himself looked _exactly_ like the picture of legitimacy, but it was worth a try.

"Hey, you caught him! Brilliant!" said one of the prowlers. "Now all we have do do is bring him to the Gull, and we're off! C'mon!"

"Aye," Jack agreed bewilderedly. They thought he was one of them, did they? _Oh yes, 'brilliant' is the word all right. _Jack thought.

"He's alive, right?" another prowler asked. "We need him alive."

"Oh yes. Alive," Jack answered, even though he wasn't quite sure of that. Tagging along with the gang, he asked the closest prowler, who was also the shortest, "So, why again were we after this boy?"

"Cause he knows whare tae find the island, o' course," the shortish prowler answered in a sarcastic, slightly Gaelic, accent.

"O' course," Jack echoed. "We... are in fact referring to the island that cannot be found except by those who already know where it is, yes?"

"Hush up ya two!" the prowler in the lead barked, as he lead the troupe past the sparse, burnt foliage on the beach, and onto the long loading dock in the bay.

The prowlers started piling into the three jollyboats tied to a few of the dock's many mooring-posts. Jack hefted Will's limp body into one of these rickety little boats, then climbed into it himself, and yanked his cutlass from his belt. Before any of the prowlers could climb in after him, Jack cut the boat's mooring-rope, and shoved off from the dock with one of the oars.

"'ey, hold up, whatda ya think ya're doin'?" growled one of the confused prowlers, the one with a cockatrice tattoo. "The Gull's _that_ way," he added, nodding towards a ship off to the right. He was brandishing a blunderbuss now, which he promptly aimed at Jack.

"You might hit him!" Jack said, yanking Will in front of him. "Come ta think of it," Jack added, pulling his pistol on the limp human shield, "_I _might hit him! Can't very well miss from this distance, eh?" _Oh, de-ja-vu!_

The other prowlers were aiming their own pistols, rifles, swords, and Viking axes at Jack now, but at a signal from their leader, they lowered them.

"I have just one question before we part ways forever- who the hell are you people?" Jack demanded.

"Who the hell are _we_?" the leader repeated, "Who the hell are _you_?"

"No one of consequence. That is all you need ever know," With a dip of his head, Jack seized his jollyboat's oars, and rowed for all he was worth back to the Black Pearl.

"Jack, ya got the wrong person!" Mr. Gibbs growled, as he inspected the numb body Jack had flung up over the side of the Pearl.

"What?" Jack demanded sharply.

"This here's that kid- young Turner, don't you know."

"Yes, in fact, I _do_ know."

"Thought we was puttin' in for a _blacksmith_."

"Meet Will Turner, pirate whelp, accomplice ship-thief, and local ironworker of Port Royale."

Gibbs eyed Will's slumped form on the deck disapprovingly. "I take it he weren't much keen on comin'."

"How very well you put it. Nice and tidy; I like your phraseology."

"Were that really necessary?" Gibbs sighed, as he dropped to one knee and pressed two grimy fingers to Will's neck to check for a pulse.

"Oh yeah. Really, truly."

"Will he be alright then?" Gibbs asked dubiously.

_After tonight,_ Jack thought, "He bloody well better be."

The sails of the prowler's ship, the Gull, began puffing in the direction of the Pearl's bow.

Since the rudder was broken, the Pearl couldn't exactly turn tail and disappear into the night, as was Jack's custom. So, after attempts to turn the Pearl around with the sweeps failed, Jack gave the hissed order for his crew to: "Back the sails!" "Bagpipe the mizzen!"

And so the Black Pearl sailed backwards out of Port Royal, with the Gull hard on their… bow?


	6. Hue and Cry

=Chapter 6: Hue and Cry=

* * *

Sometimes, just sometimes, it was hard for Elizabeth Swann to remember that she was a governor's daughter, and not a lady-in-waiting.

She gazed glumly out the sunny parlor window, which, thanks to the large hill the governor's mansion was built on, had a view stretching halfway across the port town. The fancy silver spyglass she'd borrowed from Commodore Norrington's office also helped. She'd been spying on every random peddler, washwoman, innkeeper, and drunken sailor since 7:27 that morning, an hour and twenty-seven minutes after Will had promised he'd come to say goodbye.

Honestly, it was just rotten that he had to go off on a two-day business trip to fix some stupid miller's mill, just three days after their grand adventure with Barbossa, and Jack, and the curse, and the Black Pearl, and that kiss... Really, weren't there enough things for Will to fix in Port Royal, after that beastly pirate raid? Why did he have to go all the way inland to the plantations, to fix the gears in a mill? It wasn't fair.

Well, at least she didn't have to break things around the mansion anymore just to see Will.

She'd worn her second-favorite pair of earrings, the ones with the tiny opals. She'd had her maid pin her hair up under a particularly pretty lace doily- which had taken annoyingly long, and had included some vexingly painful hair-tugging, and was rather messily done. Elizabeth was wearing her tan dress, and a pair of ankle boots. It did get muddy sometimes on Port Royal's streets, and she'd planned on coaxing Will into joining her on another short walk this morning before he left, like the walk they'd had last afternoon when that slave from the sugar mill had come seeking a blacksmith. The mill was a whole day's travel away, and as that day had been almost over, Will had decided to wait till today's daybreak to depart. When he was _supposed_ to come say goodbye first. _Maybe he just forgot... _Elizabeth was quite put out by the thought.

She felt a little foolish now, for beating herself up for sleeping in, and for snapping at Estrella to hurry up with her hair that morning. The maid had been frightened by a spider halfway through the hairdressing, and so Elizabeth, antsy and impatient, had just hurried off with her hair half-done. She'd been _positive_ she'd left Will waiting for her down in the parlor, but to her relief she'd found it quite unoccupied. That was an hour ago, and the relief had turned to annoyance, and then to concern.

Before she could pace a hole in the parlor (in addition to those already blasted in it from the recent pirate raid), Mr. Culligan, the new doorman her father had hired after the last one got shot by pirates, gracefully opened the front doors. "Visitor for you, Miss Swann," he announced.

Elizabeth had to struggle to keep her breathing even, and not because of her corset either. She'd burned the new London-style one her father had bought her for Commodore Norrington's promotion ceremony, and she'd vowed to only ever wear her old-fashioned, well-worn, comfortable, half-_breathable _corsets from now on. _Will! _Her heart leapt under the tan taffeta of her dress, and sank just as quickly when she saw who her visitor was.

It was the miller's hand. Not Will. The miller's hand was wearing the same colorless servant clothes as last night, the same boring hat over the same bright eyes, and he looked supremely irritated.

"Pardon me Miss, but where's Mista Turner?" he asked, before Elizabeth could ask the same question.

"He's not with you?" Elizabeth asked.

"I been searchin' high an' low for that smith since sunup, an' no sign of him anywheres. I checked all the local taverns and sich-"

"Oh, Will doesn't go to such places," Elizabeth interjected.

"Well, where does'ee go?"

"Um... " Elizabeth had to think about this."Well he- he spends an awful lot of time down by the docks, when he's not at work in his smithy..." In fact, Will was almost always to be found there when he wasn't hammering metal or running errands for Mr. Brown... A thought came to Elizabeth, that hadn't come since she was a child, back when she thought Will was a pirate. What if he'd gotten a taste for sea, like they say in novels and things? What if he left to sea someday? What if today was that day? Her father _had_ been the one to made the decision to apprentice Will to Mr. Brown, so Will himself had never really _decided_ to stay in Port Royal to begin with... "At any rate, he's not here," she finished.

"Docks? Ah'm much obliged teh ye," said the miller's hand. "Sorry teh bother ye, Miss. G'day." With that, he left.

Elizabeth came to the conclusion that the miller's hand had obviously never played hide-and-seek with Will Turner, like she had when they were small. So she decided to start her own investigation.

Starting, naturally, at J. Brown's Smithy. Without so much as bothering to tell the doorman, or for that matter the stableman, where she was going, Elizabeth had a stableboy saddle one of the less nippy stallions, and set off to the smithy, riding side-saddle. The stallion was actually one of the carriage horses, and wasn't used to being ridden, but he was also, luckily, very good-tempered.

When Elizabeth got there, she tied her horse's reins to the hand of the bronze statue outside the blacksmith shop, then strolled up to the doors and knocked.

"Back door!" a muffled, sandpaper voice from inside called out.

"What was that, Mr. Brown?"

"_Back door_!" he repeated, a little more crossly.

Shrugging to herself, Elizabeth went around the back of the shop, pushed open the back door... and that's when she saw what Brown had meant. Barrels, a crate, a chair, a wagon wheel, a large basket, and chains were all blocking the front doorway. They didn't look like they'd been accidentally put there either.

"What's all that about?" Elizabeth asked.

"Ask Will."

"I would if I could; where is he? Where were you last night? Did Will go with you? Have you seen any sign of Will since?"

"No, dang it," Mr. Brown said, with an out-of-sorts scowl. "Just got back after scouring the town fer 'im on me bad leg," he said, tapping the leg with his crutch, as if Elizabeth couldn't already _see _which one it was with all those yards of dirty, bloodstained linen wrapped around it. From what Will had told her, one of the cannonballs had flown through Mr. Brown's roof on the night of the pirate attack, and a good portion of the roof had collapsed in on him, mostly on his leg. Elizabeth couldn't help thinking that Mr. Brown had exaggerated the injury, just to get out of helping Will with all the work. But then again, she'd never much liked the man. Ever since she and Will were children, Brown had always kept Will so very busy; always shooing her away when ever she wanted to see him.

"What on earth could've happened here?" she asked, looking bewilderedly around at the very messy interior of what was usually a very tidy shop. Weapons, candles, and wood chips were scattered all over the floor, the parlor chandelier from the mansion was crashed in a tangle, and then of course there was all that clutter blocking the front doors.

Mr. Brown shrugged irritably and shook his head, as if trying to get the sound of Elizabeth's jittery voice out of his ears.

"Mr. Brown, haven't you _any_ idea, any notion, of where Will went?"

"Missin' _again_, prolly run off with renegades, _again_, left the shop a wreck, and left me to take care of the surplus work and orders alone..."

The miller's slave poked his dark, hatted head in through the back door just then. "'Ave yeh found Mista Turner yet, Mista Brown?" he asked. "Oh, good mornin' again, Miss Swann." he added, catching sight of her.

"Why does everyone keep askin' _me_?" Mr. Brown grumbled.

"Sorry sir, but I can't return teh the mill without a blacksmith, and Kingston's too far ta travel. Ey, yer a blacksmith, why don' you come in his stead?" the miller's hand suggested.

"With this bad leg? I think not."

The two of them were just starting to get into a heated argument on the matter, when Elizabeth spotted something black hanging from one of the rafters. Curiously, she wandered over to it. It was cloth, and too high up to reach. So Elizabeth picked up one of the swords on the floor, and snagged it down with the hooked knobs of the sword hilt, being very careful not to cut her fingers on the well-polished blade. The black thing fell down on her head, and after pulling it off, and briefly worrying if it'd wrecked her hairdo, Elizabeth realized that it was a hooded cape, one she'd never remembered seeing Will wear. He didn't like wearing black. After _all, _he lived in the Caribbean.

Her wandering ankle boots led her to a small back room behind the forge. Will's room. Feeling just the littlest bit guilty for trespassing, she started hunting for clues. There wasn't much to go on. Just a hammock, a bed-table with drawers, and a short bench; above which were four pegs to hang his hat, cloak and an empty lantern on. Elizabeth rifled through the drawers first. She found _Oh, surprise, surprise, _sword plans, a page of translated sword fighting techniques with small illustrations of different stances, a list of materials, sword-hilt sketches... _Well, it's obvious what __he __dreams about. _

But one particular sketch erased the sarcasm from Elizabeth's mind. It was a rather nice one of her, that Will must have either drawn from memory (and it must have been a _very _detailed memory), or, he must've been spying on her. Either way would be flattering.

The only other items in the drawers were a few shiny bits of sea-polished glass and stone, a letter-opener, keys, and two whetstones. Elizabeth shut the drawer, and moved on to the short stack of books on top of the bench. She picked up the book on the top of the pile. It was heavy, stained, in rather shoddy condition, and had the words 'Capo Fero' printed on the leather cover. Elizabeth flipped through the yellowed pages a bit...

_To me it is not legitimate to speak of changing from guard to guard, one not making a good guard, if not a single one._

_Offense is a defense in which I seek measure and strike my adversary._

_Chapter XI: On the way of seeking measure._

_There are two parts to offense: seeking measure, and-_

...it was a fencing book, she guessed. Suddenly, it flipped open to a page bookmarked by a slim notebook with twine binding. Curiously, Elizabeth leafed through the notebook. The lettering was neat and crisp, and spoke of sword repairs and Aztec gold and Miss Swann... _It's Will's diary!_ Elizabeth realized excitably. She hastily skipped to the last entry, telling herself it was just to find some clue of Will's mysterious disappearance. But no matter how hard she tried to read between the lines, she couldn't find anything suggesting he was planning on leaving to anywhere besides the mill, or any explanation concerning the odd state of Brown's smithy. She did, however, find a lot of lovely things about her, Will's thoughts on right and wrong and law and pirates, and a few passages mentioning his pirate father, Bootstrap.

She was very careful to leave everything exactly how she found it, not wanting Will to know she'd invaded his privacy. _That is, if I ever find him, _she added to herself.

A sudden notion struck Elizabeth, and she grabbed Will's flamboyant ostrich-feather hat off it's hook, snuck out the back way while Mr. Brown and the miller's hand continued their argument, and mounted her horse...

About an hour later, she set off again from her mansion on foot, this time with a barrel-shaped white-and-brown speckled spaniel, and a black terrier poodle mutt at her heels. They were two of her father's many hunting dogs, and Elizabeth had let them both get a good whiff of Will's hat.

Apparently, smelling it wasn't good enough for Piranha, the mutt, since she'd enthusiastically taken a bite out of it as well. Now that the hat was safely up on Elizabeth's head, Piranha had to make do with biting Elizabeth's ankles, which kept Elizabeth on her toes more literally than she would have liked. More than the hat, though, the dogs seemed fascinated by the black cape she'd found at the smithy, and was presently wearing. To her, it just smelt like tar and dead fish.

She followed the dogs' noses all the way to Fort Charles' cannon-crowned summit, all the way to a hole in the well-fortified wall. A hole which led into a jail cell. "It's a dead end!" she exclaimed. The spaniel, whatever his name was, gave her the canine equivalent of a shrug, then continued sniffing every bone and bootmark to his heart's content.

"Ello, poppet!" came a cheery voice from the cell on the opposite wall.

"Why haven't they hung you yet?" Elizabeth snapped. That one-eyed pirate really creeped her out.

"Dunno. Too busy, I guess. Nice hat," said the one-eyed pirate's yellow-eyed friend. That one she could put a name to. Pintel.

"Alright, where's Will Turner?" Elizabeth demanded.

"You'll never find him, unless ya give us the keys..." a pirate wearing a yellow knit cap answered.

Elizabeth sighed. "I don't even _have _them."

It was at that moment that the shaggy grey dog with the keys in his mouth slipped through the bars to the cell Elizabeth was in, and promptly went to sniff Piranha's tail.

"You do now," said Pintel, as Piranha gave the key dog a friendly bite on the ear. "So have at it, poppet. Is it a deal?"

"I rather think you're bluffing," Elizabeth speculated.

"Mebbe," answered a pirate in the back of the cell. "We don' have 'im here, that is. But we know who took him!"

"Took him?" Elizabeth echoed. "So he _was_ shanghaied, I knew it!"

"So, about them keys..." the pirate with the knit cap persisted.

"Excuse me miss," a crisp voice from the prison stairwell stated, "but you're not supposed to be in here."

"Oh- ah... well it's not like I'm locked in here, I- I've got a hole," she replied to the skeptical-looking soldier.

"These cells were built especially for criminals. I'm afraid it's illegal for you to be in here unless you're a criminal," the redcoat insisted bluntly.

Elizabeth badly wished to say, _So what'll you do if I don't leave? Lock me up? _But propriety constrained her to answer, "Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know that. Good day!"

"Ya know where to find us if ya change yer mind!" Pintel hollered out as she left.

"Oh sure, the executioner's block!" she called back. Well, so much for that. Maybe she'd sneak back in and try her luck later... not releasing the pirates of course, but perhaps she could wheedle some information out of them somehow... maybe have Lucinda bake them a cake?

The dogs were heading off again, so Elizabeth followed. Though she tried shooing him away, the key doggie tagged after. He was simply enamored with Piranha.

The dogs chased after chickens, barked at island birds, pigs, and mules, ran from monkeys, conversed with stray howling dogs, chased a black cat up a charred brittle palm tree, led her past shrubbery, coconuts, crates, barrels, buckets, a fountain, strewn pottery, an overturned construction frame, assorted pushcarts, a short, tidy, well-built, wooden-roofed well; streets strewn with fallen shingles, a fallen clothesline, a butchers, a bakery, and a chandler's shop all in a row...

Just when Elizabeth begun to think that all she was accomplishing was giving the dogs some exercise, she heard a feeble wail.

Cautiously, oh so cautiously, she pushed open the door of the cramped little house. "Hello?" she called out softly. Then she heard the cry again.

That's when she noticed the baby. Floating in the sink. "Oh, heavens!" she gasped, which set all three dogs barking excitably. Hastily, Elizabeth snatched the whining babe out from under the dripping faucet, and set it down on the dusty table. Unbuttoning the cloak from around her neck, she wrapped it around the sniffling infant, while the dogs all put their paws up on the table to get a better look. Scooping up the cloak-wrapped baby and resting it on one hip, Elizabeth stepped back to the sink to investigate.

Clogging the drain was a blue-grey, oddly familiar vest. She fished it out, and slung it over the table, which was the only piece of furniture in the place. Probably the only furniture that would fit. The spaniel started sniffing the vest with great interest, so Elizabeth decided to take a second look. Checking the damp pockets with her free hand, her fingers closed around something hard, with a chain. She pulled it out. It was her father's prized pocket-watch! And tangled in the gold chain, was one of Commodore Norrington's shiny medals!

Suddenly, she knew where she'd seen that vest before. It was on a tiny spit of an island, where the only thing to stare at besides palms and shells, and sand, and sea, and sky, was a certain pirate by name of... _Captain Jack Sparrow. _


	7. A Pirate's Colors

=Chapter 7: A Pirate**'**s Colors=

* * *

White light. Colorless and vibrant, and slowly fading to black... so black.

Slowly, Will's vision cleared, and he began to make out the shape of wooden planking overhead. As soon as color seeped in, he could see the greenish mold clinging to the ebony-brown planks, and could hear a rooster crowing.

Lifting his stiff neck off the hard surface below it, Will curled upward, only to fall back down as the white light returned, along with a searing pain in his head. Shoving his loose curls out of his eyes, he squinted hard in the direction of the crowing, and was a little surprised to make out blue-and-gold macaw feathers. Ignoring his throbbing head, Will shot upright again, rocking dizzily forward onto his knees.

Mr. Cotton was lounging in a stream of sunlight, by a crooked table, munching on an under-ripe apple- not that he could taste it without a tongue. His parrot was perched above Will, on the stovetop, preening its feathers. As Will's eyes swept over the narrow room- the blunt carving knives, stacks of chipped, unwashed dishes, and unsecured barrels (one knocked over, with its contents of oranges traveling all over the floor), Will came to a sickening realization. He was in the galley aboard the Black Pearl.

One of the oranges smacked against his foot, bringing Will's notice to the fact that he was missing a boot. _Oh yes,_ and that his his ankle was manacled. It was chained to the base of the large iron stove, probably the only furniture in the galley that was actually nailed down. Scowling, Will used the stove to pull himself to his feet. On the stovetop was the huge, broken, metal hinge of the ship's rudder, along with some improvised blacksmithing tools.

_Doesn't anyone understand the King's English?_ Will wondered blackly.

One end of the handcuffs Jack had clapped on him last night was still dangling off his left wrist, and clinked against the makeshift tools as Will's fingers browsed over them. Obviously, Jack Sparrow was a total dunce when it came to blacksmithing. It was like giving someone a rapier to peel potatoes. Possible, but certainly not practical.

Will searched his jacket pockets, but they'd been picked clean, and all his weapons and belts were also missing. As were the three throwing-daggers he'd hidden in his missing boot. _Drat._

"Where's Jack?" Will demanded.

Cotton swallowed a cheekful of apple, and shrugged.

_Oh, right, the man's a mute, _Will remembered.

As Will's eyes traveled across the items available to him, he alit upon an idea. Selecting an awkwardly heavy hammer from the array, he stepped on the chain connecting his ankle to the stove, to hold it in place, and then gave the weakest-looking of the links a swift blow. As intended, it snapped the circlet, and left Will liberated.

Cotton straightened up, and opened his mouth, as if he wanted to alert someone, but had forgotten that he couldn't. Dropping his apple core, he took off at a rusty dash to the stairwell. Cotton's parrot, however, started screeching "Brimstone and pitch!", sounding just like a fallen angel in a devil's choir.

Just to the right of the stove was a large open window that let in a dense sea breeze, and no doubt kept the galley well-ventilated from the stove's smoke. Climbing up onto the counter, Will promptly jumped out through the open shutters, and splashed into the warm, salty water...

...only to get snared in a net, just below the waterline. _Drat. I knew it was too easy... _Will thought, as he felt the rough rope fibers tauten around his shoulders and knees. He shoved out against the knotted hemp, and writhed like a crocodile as he strove to get free, but he only ended up tangling himself worse. Besides which, the lack of oxygen was wreaking havoc on his strength and concentration. Just as he figured he was about to pass out again, he felt the seawater rush down past his ears, as he was hoisted upwards, past the bulwarks to just above the main deck.

And there Jack stood, upside-down from Will's point of view, decked out in an elaborate coat that made him look more like a red-winged blackbird than a sparrow. His hands were on his hips, Will's sword was worn beside his own like a trophy, and he was grinning wickedly.

The Black Pearl was likewise spruced up and dapper, and as wicked as ever. There wasn't so much as a tear in her raincloud-black sails now that the curse was broken, and high above her ship-shape deck, an unfamiliar flag was flying. It depicted a crossed cutlass and pistol, white against black, and was re-sewn down the middle where someone had torn it in half.

"I had thought we might have to endure some manner of-" Jack paused searchingly, before adding, "ill-conceived escape attempt."

"Hey… Isn' that the farrier?" said a crewman with sandy brown, straggly hair, who was probably a new hand, since Will didn't recognize him. Especially not upside-down.

In fact, Jack's entire mangy crew seemed to be collected on deck. This was a little confusing, until Will spotted a prayerbook, and noticed that a lot of the men had their hats off and over their hearts. _A sea burial_. Obviously, whoever the poor chap was, he'd already been committed to the deep.

The crew's sober expressions made Jack's toothy grin even more out-of-place. "Nah, entirely impossible-couldn't be, _our _blacksmith's hard at work in the galley, rightin' our rudder as we speak." Jack said, shooting a meaningful glance at Cotton, who'd just come up through a hatch.

"I'm not _your_ blacksmith!" Will coughed. His breath still came in gasps. "And I'm not fixing your ruddy rudder!" he added, lashing about in a completely futile attempt to untangle himself.

"Reverse those two statements, and you'd have it just about pegged," Jack answered smugly.

Striving to hold onto his fraying composure, Will replied through clenched teeth and gnarly ropes, "Alright. I'm _not_ fixing your rudder, and I'm _not _your blacksmith."

"See, now you've gone and misunderstood me!" Jack protested, with an expression like a kicked dog.

"Ne'er a difficult feat," the woman pirate Anamaria muttered aloud. "e's only human, Jack."

Jack screwed up his brow at her, before turning to the men holding the ropes to Will's net. "Belay it," he ordered. "You know mate," he said to Will conversationally, "if you'd only taken the bait in the first place, the net would be unnecessary."

Ceasing his struggling, the drenched blacksmith assumed an assuring smile. "Jack," he answered pleasantly, feigning sincerity, "it _is_ unnecessary."

"Not yet," Jack stated, and Will could tell he wasn't buying his charade for a minute.

So he dropped it, and went back to trying to escape. "But as I am not repairing your ship, and that was, I take it, the only use you had of me, there would be no point served by not releasing me," Will growled irritably.

"Ah, but what point would be served by _not _not releasing you?" Jack speculated.

Ceasing again a moment from struggling, partly because his hair had gotten snarled in the ropes, Will replied hopefully, "You'd- be... rid of me?"

"Now how'd that make sense amidst all the trouble we went through ta get ya here? We meaning: _me_." Jack's grin turned grim, and he added, "But by all means, try again."

This comment provoked some scattered snorts and laughter amongst the formerly funeral-sobered crew.

"If you chain me to that stove again, I'd swear on any bloody object you can name, I'll burn your ship down," Will warned with a glower.

"_Mr. Turner_, you're not exactly in what one could call the _ideal _position for making threats." Jack was no longer smiling.

Coming to the same conclusion, Will muttered, "Do tell."

"Would the word 'keelhaulin' hold any _particular _meaning for you?" Jack inquired, taking a step closer to the swaying net. "Floggin'? Disfigurement? _Branding?" _

There were mutters of agreement amongst the crew. "Jus' dunk 'im back in an' lets see 'ow long he can hold 'es _breath!_" Anamaria snarled impatiently.

"No, no, no, 'ang 'em upside down from a yardarm!" the midget pirate Marty suggested.

A very nondescript fellow in the back raised his four-fingered hand excitably. "Oh, oh, tar and feathers?"

"Rawk! Gallows-bird!" Cotton's parrot squawked, joining in on the fun, and circling the net like a vulture.

"Uh… Cotton.." Gibbs chided, shaking his head.

Cotton shrugged.

"Rubbish, all we 'ave ta do is impen' upon 'em the threat of lettin' _Adam_ here's barber give 'em an 'aircut," a pirate wearing a black leather bandanna joked, dodging his bald shipmate's attempt to cuff him over the ear.

One particularly creepy blond pirate purred cruelly, "I say, we set the waif adrift 'n a burnin' skiff tell 'e begs fer mercy..."

"I believe the standard punishment for insolence to one's captain is ten lashes," A strict-looking crewmate in a wig declared, then, to Jack, added; "If you'd only make _me _quartermaster I'd be glad to-"

"He's not my _captain,_" Will clarified.

Gibbs, the _present_ quartermaster, cast a scowl at the wig-wearer, before informing Will, "Actually, ye were drafted, so theoretically-"

"He's not my captain!" Will repeated angrily, feeling a little distraught by now. Pirates really were vermin.

"'ang 'em from a yardarm!" Mr. Marty repeated loudly, as if his was the best idea so far.

"Disfigament soun'ed good…how 'bouts we cut off 'es _hands_…" the bald pirate, who Will assumed was Adam, said, pulling a nasty-looking pair of scissors out of his pocket. Will took an instant dislike to him.

"Ya numbskull, how then'd he fix the rudder, huh?" the black bandanna wearer scoffed, obviously trying to pick a fight.

"Well, mebbe we'll jus' make this a _double _funeral, eh?" some other pirate behind Will added.

"Like I said, set 'em adrift," the creepy blond argued.

"That'd take too long!" Anamaria snapped acidly, "I-"

"_Wewll_," Jack interrupted hastily, "I'm sure we could work _something_ out, they're all wonderful suggestions."

"You can't force me," Will stated.

"You are so hopelessly contradictory at times!" Jack exclaimed. "But sooner or later, one way or another, like it or not- more likely not- that rudder's gettin' _fixed_."

"Not by me," Will argued stubbornly.

Jack heaved a heavy sigh. "When last we left Port Royale, bein' the previous night, she weren't exactly the lovely picture of fortification as is usually indisputably fact."

"Getting a little off track aren't we?" Will asked guardedly, not altogether sure what Jack was up to.

The pirate captain's smile returned. "Out here, it's generally known as 'off _course'_." The crew seemed amused.

"You mean to attack Port Royal," Will stated humorlessly.

Jack nodded emphatically.

"Might I point out a technicality?"

"Please do," Jack said, looking mildly surprised that anyone could find a 'technicality' with his plan.

"As far as I can see, you've a thirty-two gunner but a company to man her of just twelve-" Spotting Marty in the crowd Will corrected himself. "-thirteen." Craning his neck back around, he saw that Jack was fixing him with his, 'You're a bloody idiot, Will,' expression.

"Thirteen?" Gibbs echoed hollowly.

"Four, five, six," the nondescript one counted.

"Firteen," Marty announced.

"Nine, ten, eleven..."

"It's a sign!"

"Thirteen!"

"Who's ta blame?"

"Yes, _alright,_" Jack snapped, massaging his furrowed brow. "But that holds true only so long as till we next make port," he added, to Will. "After which time Port Royale'd be free for the looting, or, if we'd a mind to; the taking."

The whispered word 'thirteen', kept being passed around in low, edgy tones amongst the crew, leaving Will to wonder at the significance of the number.

"That is absurd," he answered Jack, bringing his thoughts back to the matter at hand.

"Oh yes, entirely," Jack agreed amiably. "But fortunately not _impossible_."

Will's eyes were an unasked question.

"Just think of it _logically _mate," Jack illuminated, "Port Royale's still recoverin' from the last attack, effected by this selfsame vessel you'll remember, Norrington's halfway cross the Caribbean 'long wiv The Dauntless, The Reliance, and…that.. that other ship, and sides which, they won't be _expectin'_ ta see us again."

"-Because of the known fact that even the most _witless_ of pirates wouldn't attempt such a thing," Will pointed out.

"Yep, try as they might, British haven't an ounce of imagination amid the scurvy lot of 'em."

"I happen to _be_ British," Will muttered.

"Only _half _British, son," Jack corrected knowingly.

Will hated it when people, or for that matter, pirates, knew more about him than he did. "Before you reach that shore, Fort Charles' long nines will render you dead in the water, and nothing you do will _imagine _that away."

Jack pretended momentarily to seriously consider this. "I thought of one: we'll masquerade her as a counterfeit of the night sky, brilliant eh?"

"Trying the same trick, on the same port, with the same ship?" Will asked dully; unimpressed. "And you say the _British_ lack imagination."

"Yeah, wewl ya see, if they had any imagination, they might imagine that we hadn't."

"Wait." Will paused, trying to grasp the logic of this. "If you haven't any imagination then how could you imagine what the British might or might not be imagining you to imagine?"

Jack shrugged. "There, ya have it," he said, and Will realized too late that he had just proved Jack's point.

"And how do you plan on pulling this stunt of yours without a working rudder?" Will inquired, coming back to the other point. "It's not much incentive for me to be fixing it."

"There _are _ways of ensurin' safe passage ya know," Jack answered a little too quickly, a meaningfully suggestive gleam in his eyes, and an 'already-thought-of-that' expression crossing his sharp-featured face.

Will raised an eyebrow.

Captain Sparrow elucidated. "If I remember correctly, ol' governor what's-his-wig had a…, a _daughter_. Elizabell was it? You may recall her, trim, handsome, spirited lass, wiv a _remarkable_ habit of landin' 'erself in trouble…"

"You _wouldn't,_" said Will darkly.

"Oh, wouldn't I?" asked Jack suspiciously.

Will's tone turned lethal. "Jack Sparrow, if you come within a yard's reach of Miss Swann I swear I'll-"

"Go ahead, call my bluff," Jack cut in. "The outcome should prove more than mildly entertaining."

Will glared hatefully. He'd lost this round, and Jack knew it.

Seizing the net to stay its sway, Jack leaned in so close Will could smell the rum and pistachios on his breath, and said, "Or perhaps we're feelin' more inclined ta negotiation? What say you ta this- if you fix me rudder, then I'll set me sails from Port Royale for good, leaving safe your _precious_ dame, an' you'll be free. I swear it, on my honor."

Will's sparse mustache twitched wryly. "Your _honor,_" he scoffed. "And at what value is _that_ presently held?"

"Honestly, have I ever broken my word before?" Jack protested, looking offended, and releasing the net.

"Nonetheless, I'd be of a better mind to accept your offer, were you to swear on your position as captain of the Black Pearl," Will declared in a blank, rehearsed, business tone.

"Very well, on my honor as a captain," Jack growled. "Happy?"

_Is he mad?_ Will wondered cynically. It wasn't a difficult question.

"But you _will_ fix it?" Jack prompted tentatively.

Will looked off past the gleaming mid-morning waves, wondering which direction Port Royal was. It was then he realized that there was something odd about the sails, like an umbrella turned up. "Is this ship sailing backwards?" he asked.

"It _won't_ be if we 'ave to sail back to Port Royale..." Jack warned. "So what'll it be, Will?"

Will's spine tensed against the ropes. Quietly, he gave in. "…You win."

"I knew we could come to terms," Jack's exotic face lit up, and he nodded to one of the crewmen. "I just knew it. Premonition."

Jack's nod must have meant, 'hey Adam, why don't you use those scissors to snip that rope, to drop Will, net and all, face-first and as painfully as possible on the deck?', judging from the new splinters in Will's cheek.

Jack reached down and pulled Will to his feet by the hand, with a satisfied smirk. "Welcome aboard the _Black Pearl, _mate," he greeted, shaking the hand he still held.

Standoffishly, Will jerked his hand free.

Jack whirled towards Anamaria. "Escort our touchy guest back ta the galley," he ordered, and then started sauntering off. But not before pausing to add, "Oh, and do make sure he's actually _watched _this time."


	8. Rudder Repair

=Chapter 8: Rudder Repair=

* * *

"Does dis look blunt ta you?" Anamaria asked, holding up the large carving knife she'd been diligently sharpening.

"Well I don't know, why don't you hand me it a moment…" Will replied flatly, not even looking up from the cluttered stovetop.

"Why don' I jus' _throw_ it ta you?" Anamaria suggested scathingly. "Been some time since I've practiced my dagger throwing."

"Really," Will stated disinterestedly, pulling out a white-hot piece of metal from the oven with a pair of too-short tongs. It was midday, and positively searing, so he'd left his jacket slung over a chair-back.

"You'd make such a wonderful target, 'at's all," Anamaria finished, a bit irritably.

"Ignore 'er lad," Mr. Gibbs sighed.

"An' wha' kinda advice is _that_?" Anamaria shot back.

"Um…" Looking over the pot he was stirring, and eying the knife in Anamaria's hand, Gibbs reconsidered. "Actually, on second thought, yeh'd probably do well ta listen to your elders- um, err- I mean- your betters, your- uh-"

Anamaria glared from under the rim of her lumpy, shell-trimmed hat. She was so good at glaring.

The galley smelt of smoke, mold, fish, and gruel. There was a scruffy calico cat on the deeply-scratched table, which kept whisking her dainty orange paw out to steal scraps of food, mostly fish fritters, from the humble breakfast Gibbs was preparing.

"Sooo," Gibbs began again, "Ana, I don't s'pose ye'd know where the pepper were? I burnt the gruel."

"An' pepper'll make make it better?" Anamaria scoffed, as she picked the next blunt carving knife out of the open drawer beneath the counter she was sitting on, and replaced it with her razor-sharp one. Over two-thirds of the drawer of knives had already been sharpened by now.

Gibbs shrugged. "Couldn' make it worse," he said, setting the large pot down on the table. The cat hissed at him, fluffing up its orange, black, and white fur.

Anamaria resumed burning a figurative hole in the back of Will's creamy shirt with her fiery glare, as she roughly scraped the whetstone in her palm against her next carving knife.

"Is there some problem between us, Miss Anamaria?" Will sighed between his teeth finally, shattering the tense silence that had been building up.

"Oh, she's just sore about the rudder bein' broke," Gibbs explained quickly, "since then she can't steer the helm- that's the wheel at the front of-"

"I _know_ what a helm is," Will interrupted sourly. It wasn't as if he were a _total _landlubber.

"Right," Gibbs said, looking just a tad disappointed that he didn't get to explain what a helm was, "so then she can't be helmswoman, so then she's stuck workin' down here in the galley like-"

"Like a common _scullerymaid,_" Anamaria finished jaggedly.

"-Well I were gonna say,'like the rest of us," Gibbs finished.

"Same thing," she snapped.

"It puts her in a frightful bad mood," Gibbs finished, casting Will an apologetic glance.

"Who says I'm in a bad mood?" Anamaria snarled. Will heard an _especially_ loud scrape from her knife against the whetstone.

"Just as a matter of professional curiosity, how _exactly_ did this rudder get broken?" the blacksmith inquired. Gibbs was the one to ask if you had questions. He always had an answer. Not necessarily the _right _answer, but an answer.

But Anamaria was quicker on the draw. "Jack's fault," she answered without pause.

"Were not!" Gibbs defended. "See Will, after rescuin' the cap'n from the noose, there we were, sailin' free as a bird up the Windward Passage, bound towards Hispaniola, when who should we happen across, but Captain Alcott Gaffton, an old mate of Jack's. Old in this case meanin', 'outdated', I s'pose. Since that same night, after Jack'd invited Gaffton over for a spot of rum and story-swappin', Gaffton, he steals Jack's compass, and has some of his lads maim the Pearl's rudder, and shoot poor ol' Elijah, the lookout, who was the poor bloke we were havin' the sea-burial fer this mornin'. So as we were comin' round ta fire a broadside inta Gaffton's floatin' tub of nails, the _Bandog-_ the Pearl's rudder cracks clear off it's hinges, and so Gaffton gets away, and us, we're stuck sailin' straight back the way we came, ta Port Royal. So of _course_ we had ta nab us a blacksmith."

"Of course," Will replied dryly.

"Otherwise we'd be stuck mired at the navy hot-spot of Port Royal," said Gibbs.

"Which would be terrible for you, I'm sure," Will stated cynically.

"Mighty convenient, you turnin' out ta be a blacksmith, an' all," Gibbs added.

"Not for _me_."

"C'mon, cheer up lad, Jack'll keep his word," Gibbs said, but as an afterthought added, "or find someway to make his words match his actions, he always does. Just you wait and see."

_Somehow,_ Will didn't find Gibbs' words altogether reassuring.

Later on that day, around lunchtime, Jack wandered aimlessly into the galley, followed by most of the rest of his crew.

Will was leaning in a corner, in the same spot he'd been in for the several hours since he'd finished his task; his arms crossed, and his eyes expectant.

Jack paused in front of the very obviously _fixed, _and even polished_, _rudder lying atop the dirty stove. "Excellent good!" he said, "Nicely done. Um, yes, stow him in the brig," he added over his shoulder, to the crew.

"Hey!" Will protested, as two of Jack's men, Shark and Inkbeard, seized his arms, and pulled him out of the corner. "You _swore_ I'd be free." Will shot an accusing glance at Gibbs, who shrugged absently, as if to say, 'jus' wait, an explanation's comin''.

Sure enough, it came. "And free ya are," Jack replied sleekly. "Of the task."

"What do-" Will began-

"Oh come now- _think,_" Jack interrupted. "If I were to set ya back that would, effectively, include puttin' in ta Port Royale, and the doing of such would be a _breakin' _of me word given as a captain, which would, in turn, make the keeping of said word quite _negligible_ really." He flashed Will an unassuring grin. "'Sides which, you're our lucky number..." he continued, wrapping an unwelcome arm around Will's shoulder, "sailin' crewed wiv but _firteen_- Dreadful bad luck ya know."

Gibbs nodded reluctantly. "Bad form, too."

"Take it as ya will, Wiwll; it stands all packaged, printed, and pretty as paint," Jack finished.

"Blasted, wretched-" Will started, but Jack cut him off again.

"Pirate? Rogue? Hell-fated villain?" the pirate joshed scoffingly. "Yeh may as well quit now, no pious mother's son like you could hope ta meet up to the kind of talk I've 'eard. Besides," he went on, "it's not like it's not yer own fool fault anyway, fer refusing me service when I asked _please_, cause if you'd just bloody well _fixed _the Pearl's rudder last night, I could've left you snug in your blacksmith shop and none the wiser, and me wivout the worry of waking up to the Commodore's long nines; and so off we go, and there you'd be, and there we'd be, and there ye have it. Savvy?" Jack asked.

Before Will could dream up another good retort, or even finish his last one, the two pirates restraining him shoved him roughly down the hatch outside the galley door. From there, they hauled him to the brig, tossed him into the puddle of bilge-water that had been collecting in the same cell Barbossa had locked him in earlier that week, locked the barred door, and left. Everything blacked out when the hatch leading up to the orlop slammed shut, and Will heard a heavy lock clamping overhead.

Once his eyes had adjusted to the dark somewhat, Will scoured his cell for any possible way out, but soon came to the cold realization that, even if he _did _manage to escape, that would still land him alone, outnumbered, and weaponless, on a pirate ship in the middle of the Caribbean Sea.

Not that any of that was going to stop him from trying.


	9. Triskadekaphobia

=Chapter 9: Triskadekaphobia=

* * *

'_Bad luck', sure. Of all the stupid excuses... _

Will kicked the rafter again, harder. It could just be his imagination, but he thought that timber had shivered, just a bit, this time. Granted, it _would _be easier if his wrists weren't chained to the bars...

_What went wrong? Why am I here, again?_ Will wondered. Last time he was in this cell, Barbossa's men had locked him in after having marooned Elizabeth and Sparrow. Barbossa had set those two dithering guards to keep an eye on him while swabbing; something Jack was too under-crewed to do. Will had escaped then, but had been recaptured while trying to find the keys to spring Gibbs and the rest. And this was the thanks he got. While still gripping the bars, upside-down, the blacksmith reviewed the past few hours.

Jack's men had locked him down here. He'd given one of them a black eye, and received a bruised shin in return. After the curs had left, he'd dedicated a few minutes to removing the black splinters his unshod foot had gathered while he'd been trying to resist getting dragged.

After which, he'd thrown the length of rope outside his bars over to the barrels under the stairs. Then he'd lit his end of the rope with the lantern's candle, in the vague hope that the barrels might contain gunpowder. Either the fuse must have fizzled out on the wet deck before the flame got there, or the barrels simply weren't filled with gunpowder, like he'd hoped. So he'd given up on that idea.

Then, he'd pulled out the long chain that was weaved in and out of the bars of his cell, and thrown it towards the messy pile of barrels and casks under the stairs. After repeated attempts, he'd finally managed to knock one loose, and catch it as it rolled by. Of all the perfidiously pointless things, it was _molasses_, instead of something useful, like, say, gunpowder. He accidentally threw the chain too far on the next try, and lost it.

Following that defeat, he'd tempted one of the ship's cats (the scruffy calico that had been filching tastes of Gibbs' cooking earlier) into his cell with his burnt, heavily peppered rations. Then he'd tied one end of a moldy rope around its neck while it was wolfing down whatever unidentifiable muck the pirates had served him. Then, he'd snatched up the plate out of its whisker's reach, and tossed a morsel of food through the bars of the door of the neighboring cell. The cat pounced it before the rats could, and after licking the small spot of cell floor cleaner than it had been since the Pearl's christening, it scurried back to him, meowing for more.

The plan had worked, and the door was hooked. He'd set the plate down to reward his accomplice, and untied the rope from the cat's scruffy neck.

Then he'd pulled both ends of the rope back just enough so that it was taut, but didn't swing the hooked cell door open. After which, he'd broken the glass of a nearby lantern, and carefully scattered the shards across the floor between the mast and his cell.

Later, around noon, when Cotton came below with another plate of slightly blackened muck, Will mentioned that a lantern had 'fallen' and there was broken glass. Taking the hint, Cotton (who was barefoot) went around the other side of the mast. When he did so, at the 'opportune' moment, Will yanked the rope (which hitherto had been concealed under about an inch of bilgewater) back hard, slamming the cell door into Cotton, knocking him to the deck, and sending the keys flying.

Will caught these, then locked the dazed, scratched, and soggy Mr. Cotton in the cell.

It would've been the perfect escape.

If not for Cotton's tale-telling interpreter. _If the parrot actually is Cotton's voice,_ Will mused to himself, _I think I can guess why someone cut out his tongue._

It was then that they'd locked him back in here, and cuffed his hands to the bars for good measure. _Bloody pirates. At least they will be once I get through with them..._

Noon had stretched to night, and since he'd smashed that lantern earlier, there wasn't even light to see or scheme by.

Will kicked the ceiling again with his booted foot, from a slightly different angle. He definitely felt it move this time, and even heard a creak.

But the creaking continued on, rhythmically, without his help. Will's eyes flew to the blackness where the stairs had been when there was light.

"That ain't going ta work," drawled an ironic voice. "That's the gundeck above you."

Will dropped lightly to the deck. He couldn't see Jack through the darkness, but it was evident which way the voice came from, and so Will cast a double-edged glare toward the stairwell. "-wretched liar," he finished, concluding his earlier, interrupted sentence.

A match struck. It brought a scanty amount of color and shape to Will's corner of the cluttered brig.

"In saying I'm a '_wretched liar'_," said Jack, while lighting the lantern he held, and sauntering up to the bars, "do you mean: I'm wretched _and_ I'm a liar, I'm a liar therefore _making_ me wretched, I'm a liar and my _lies_ are wretched, _or," _he continued, in a tone suggesting the final option was the worst of the four, "I'm wretched _at_ lying?"

"All of them at once," Will retorted, tossing his hair out of his eyes with a jerk of his neck.

"What, can't make up your mind?" Jack scoffed. He gave a sudden, toothy scowl, and dropped the burnt-down match he'd been twiddling in his fingers till it had gotten too short (and hot) to hold.

Will kept silent.

"Hungry?" asked Jack, un-pocketing a yellow apple and proffering it to Will.

Glaring numbly, Will turned away (as much as possible with his hands cuffed to the bars), and folded his arms in front of him (also, as much as possible with his hands cuffed to the bars).

Jack, who apparently did not like to be ignored, moved to the front of the cell, back into Will's line of vision, and hung up the lantern on the mast between the two cells as he went. "You seem to be in a rather disagreeably antagonistic and unsociable mood this evening," the pirate noted.

"Go hang," Will replied shortly, exasperated beyond words.

"Tried that once, didn't work out so spiffy. _Someone_ saw fittin' ta flip in last minute and thwart the whole ceremony," Jack reminded him glibly.

"Perhaps he just mistook you for a friend he thought he knew."

Less than repentant, Jack replied, "Wewl, in my defense I did ask first." He noshed a bite from his apple.

'_Stunning' defense. I'd love to see how it would hold up in any court under the parliament of Great Britain, _Will thought acidly. Aloud, he stated, "I had thought _asking _made it _optional_."

The captain smiled a characteristically gold-capped grin. "Aw, poor naïve, woefully ill-informed William junior."

Will just glared. It seemed to be the best policy, at present. Talking only seemed to encourage Jack's goading- or was it gloating?

"I take it you suspect me of having some _sinister _motive," Jack guessed, absently passing the apple from hand to hand.

"Well?" Will demanded stiffly, when he realized Jack was willing to wait quite a while if he had to for a response.

"Now would you believe me if I professed the contrary?" Jack inquired, inspecting the bitten apple as if looking for the other half of a worm.

He had a point.

"You want it straight?" Jack asked.

"Can you handle 'straight'?" Will retorted candidly.

"Question is, can you?" Jack's dark-rimmed eyes gleamed in the lantern-light, and his mouth was curled in a smile; it wasn't a pleasant sight. "Superstition and practicality, that's what it boils down to," he went on. "It's this thirteen business, triskadekaphobia, what-have-you- it seems ta have set me crew on edge; they want the score settled. As yer but a prisoner, there's some who'd say that don't rightly count as fourteen persons aboard." Jack grimaced. "There's been some distressing dispute on the matter... scattered curses, drawn swords, black eyes, shadowy whispers... I've _tried _reasoning wiv them- personally I'd say Marty only counts as half a person- two-thirds at most- but he disagrees somewhat fiercely. And then there's been quarrels as ta whefer Anamaria counts, bein' a woman an' all. All told, it's not a pretty kettle of fish. So I'm come to settle it."

Will recoiled from him, backing off a half-pace; which is as far the chains on his wrists would allow. "Kill me, and you still make thirteen," he warned; unnerved and edgy.

"Kill you?" Jack repeated, sounding strangely taken aback. "Really, Will, what _do_ you take me for?" The pirate took a step closer, which brought him right up against the bars.

_Oh, __I __don't know, let me __see__-_ Will thought, hoping he didn't look as agitated as he felt, "A pirate?"

"And that involuntarily makes me a pitiless murderer?" There was no mistaking the indignant resent in Jack's snarled words.

"Well, maybe not _involuntarily_."

"Alright, have it yer way; yep, Will, I'm the Grim Reaper personified, how's that?" Abruptly whipping his sword out of his sash, Jack slipped it through the bars and pressed the blade to Will's neck. "So do you want to keep jumping ta conclusions, or maybe just hear me out while ya still have ears ta hear wiv, eh?" he added, sliding the prickly blade up the side of Will's neck, to his earlobe.

Will twitched his head a little bit away from the blade. It followed. "You'll garner nothing more of me," the blacksmith hissed through tightly-clenched teeth.

Sliding the cutlass back out, while leaning forward, Jack whispered conspiratorially, "I'm speakin' of a proposition mate, an offer, not a conscription."

"Is it the capstan this time?" Will guessed sarcastically.

The hand holding the bitten apple flailed dismissively. "Nah. But be that as you mentioned it, the fore port anchor's looking somethin' the worse for wear. And then there's that rail that broke when the Interceptor's Main came down-"

"Tragic," Will cut in, before Jack got too absorbed in relating his to-do list.

"-Course, we're talking somefing of a more permanent nature than odd jobs," Jack finished meaningfully.

"Permanent?" Will echoed queasily.

"Aye, _permanent_. As in lasting, binding, obligatory, sealed in ink permanent."

_That __sort of permanent? _"You want me to join your crew," Will deduced.

"Not personally, you'll gather, only for well-being of ship and company."

Will smiled cynically. "You want it straight?"

"Nah wait, hold on, let me predict," Jack said, closing his black-rimmed eyes and pressing his fingertips slightly to his forehead. "_No_. Right?"

"Yes."

"Ah well, guess I'm proved wrong," Jack concluded brightly. "Shall we draw articles tonight or wait till morning?"

"You are too hasty-" Will tried to explain, but Jack would hear nothing of it.

"Tomorrow then," the pirate firmly affirmed, and then began retreating up the stairs to attempt avoiding further objection.

"Jack Sparrow, you deliberately misunderstand my meaning."

"Can't write?" Jack guessed, poking his dreadlocked head back down the stairwell.

"Course I can write- since I was five," Will countered defensively."But as a rule I never sign articles of _piracy_. It's been a sound policy."

Jack gave him a cross-eyed look. "Then if you're not resolved, whatever made you agree to the contrary?"

"Merely a presumption on your part. You do a lot of that."

"Which notion is in turn a presumption," Jack pointed out with something vaguely resembling sense.

"It _isn't_ a notion."

"And thus cannot be presumed upon! Tomorrow it is."

The beleaguered smith tried to figure that out; gave up; and glanced hopelessly toward Jack. _"What?"_

Jack simplified. "Tomorrow: the day succeeding today, which by now would be to_night_; you will put yer name ta me articles. It's a promise."

"_I _didn't make it."

"No. _I _did," Jack specified.

"Then I can rest easy in the knowledge that you are an incurable liar."

"Thought I was a _wretched _liar," Jack mused ironically.

"You're no better than Barbossa."

"I am _so_ better than Barbossa," Jack growled irritably, stalking back down the creaky steps. "_I'm_ the one still alive and captaining the Pearl, you'll note. Sides, letting you go goes direct against the code, and lacking you we make thirteen, quite the unluckiest of all numbers."

Will smirked ironically. "But it's so simple. You release me, I kill you, you're dead, and I leave. Twelve. Problem solved."

Jack just stared for a moment. "There's men I've known who'd've cut out your tongue for talk like that," he replied at last.

"Doubtless." _Isn't there a saying that goes something along the lines of: you can tell a chap by the chaps he invites over for tea? _Will wondered. One way or other it wasn't helping him to see the pirate captain in any lighter a light. "A mutual acquaintance of yours and Cotton's was he?"

"Wewl, ask him sometime and find out, why not. Now Will, besides the triskadekaphobia thing, I'd really rather not have you using your expert expertise in supplying me naval nemesises with nice swords and iron things and bullets and armory and gibbets and suchlike."

"You'd really rather I supplied them to _you,_" Will retorted.

"Yes, thanks," Jack replied. And then on a side note he added, "Side's which, I saved you from those prowlers, ya owe me."

"I fixed your rudder; we're even."

"Those prowlers, whom would no doubting have gruesomely murdered you after they'd coerced the bearings to the cursed treasure of Isla de Muerta from you-" Jack continued, undeterred.

"Was that what they were after?"

"Aye. Anyhow-"

"But I don't know the way to the Isla de Muerta," said Will vacantly.

"Which is why you'd have been gruesomely murdered," Jack agreed brightly. "Anyhow-"

The gears in Will's head were turning, as he welded this information together. "They'll come after the only other people who know... which would be Norrington and his crew- but he's off out of port on some secret mission that nobody's supposed to know about- or Governor Swann, or-" Will swallowed hard. "-or Elizabeth."

"Who?"

"Elizabeth Swann?"

Jack blinked, and squinted, and chewed on another bite of his apple, looking like he was trying to unravel some great mystery. "Any relation of the Governor?" he asked finally.

"Jack, she could be in dire peril!"

"You think?" Jack asked hopefully.

"Jack, let me out!"

The pirate smirked snarkily. "Convince me."

"Look, I have work to do, a shop to run, and very possibly a kidnapping to thwart back at Port Royal; now _let me out!"_

The pirate didn't look at all convinced. "Work and certain deff? Makes one wonder why you're so keen on getting back."

"Conscripted labor for a crew of godless pirates, or life imprisonment in a bilge? Makes one wonder why I'd want to stay," Will shot back.

"The plunder's a perk," Jack pointed out glibly. "I mean, ya gotta admit."

"Let. Me. Out."

"And if I said no?"

Will fixed the smug pirate with a warning glare, and said, "I'll not stay here while Elizabeth Swann's in danger."

"Or dead?"

A worried, desperate expression flitted over Will's face.

A moment passed.

Then Jack said, "Worrying, will do you, no good. If she's in danger, yer too late, if she's dead, your doubly too late. The worst that can happen is that she's perfectly fine," he added jestingly. On a doomier note, he added, "The second worst that can happen is if she does give 'em the barrings we'll have another collection of cursed curs caravanting across the Caribbean."

"And you don't want to prevent that?" Will asked incredulously. He flinched and looked down, just in time to see the rat which had just bitten his toe skurry off through the bars.

"So long as they leave the Pearl be, I don't bloody care."

"But they won't die, they'll be immortal, they'll monopolize all pirating practices, you'll have nothing left to plunder," Will pointed out.

"Nah, they'll just distract all the limited military ships in the West Indies, leaving ports unguarded, and, for that matter, the Isla de Muerta. And- oh yes," Jack added smugly, "-I'm the only pirate who knows where that is."

"That's not strictly true. There's also your former crew."

"Can't argue there. Give it a day or two, and I'll have a wonderful counter-argument, having a lot to do with corporal punishment and mutineers and the relation between the two."

Will glanced up to the rafters, then back at Jack, and warned, "I won't _be_ here in a day or two."

"That sounded rather blindly optimistic," Jack countered. Suddenly his voice fell to barely more than a scathing whisper, as he added, "You're on a lee shore mate; not a soul in the world knows where to find you, you're caged, outnumbered, weaponless, stripped of all security, with nothing to barter and everything to lose." He let that sink in for a heartbeat, like an anchor plunging through deep ocean, before finishing with, "Just you think on that."

Leathery boot-steps drifted up the dark stairwell. Then, abruptly, the creaking paused, as Jack added one last afterthought. "Good night Will, sleep well, I'll most likely kill you in the morning."

"Not if I kill you first..." Will muttered to himself.


	10. The Great Escape Attempts

=Chapter 10: The Great Escape Attempts=

* * *

Author's note: (Yes, we 'borrowed' the chapter name from the title of another popular fanfiction. Can you blame us? It's awesome. So sue us. Actually... please don't.)

(P.S.: For everyone who took the time to leave reviews, our sincerest thanks go out to you!)

* * *

Will's incentive to escape this bilge-trap had increased tenfold, partly because Jack had seriously ticked him off, but mostly because he'd learned the distressing news that _Elizabeth could be in danger!_

Jack had left his lantern. Big mistake. Now having light to plot by, a whole new range of objects were visible, opening a whole new range of possibilities... if you squinted. _A bucket of grime, a stool, a mop, chains, a crooked tortoise-shell, rope, a table, barrels, casks, a very clean plate, a mug of grog, a napping calico, hinges, and of course, the lantern itself. Oh yes, and the cutlery wedged into the supporting beams of this wretched cell... _

With a contortionist's dexterity, Will stretched his bootless foot to the side of him, through the grated bars, and ended up an inch shy of his goal. Trying again through another square in the bars, Will managed to snag a fork with his toes, and after a bit of a struggle, he pried its four prongs out of the moldy wood. Allowing himself a fleeting half-smile, he pulled the fork in through the bars, lifted it to his hands, and set to work jamming the handle of the fork into his handcuffs' keyhole.

It was child's play to him. Making handcuffs (and forks, for that matter) was a hobby of his. However, as soon as he'd unlocked the second cuff, the fork got stuck in the locking mechanism.

So he pried out a crooked butterknife to deal with the lock on the cell door, which was somewhat more difficult. It was a minor triumph when the door finally swung free.

However, as Will was sneaking up the stairs, it occurred to him- Jack had stolen his sword. The nice sword, the ivory-hilted sword, the sword he was supposed to deliver on Tuesday to that friend of the Governor...

The blacksmith side of Will told him he had better retrieve that blade before jumping ship. _I'll probably need it anyhow_, he reasoned. So Will quietly made for the place he figured Jack would most likely have left it, namely, the powder magazine.

The magazine was lit only by a small light-room adjacent to it, since no candles or lanterns were allowed in there with all those barrels of gunpowder. Apparently, even the most witless of pirates had some measure of common sense. Will crept in through the doorway, and made his way towards the weapon racks-

-and was very nearly skewered through the brain by a flying dagger.

Will glanced rapidly towards the patch of shadows the dagger had flown from.

"Told ya I been practicin'," came an all-too pleased sounding, female voice.

"Anamaria?" said Will finally. There didn't seem to be much else to say.

"Ah!" she warned, as Will tried to step past the dagger jutting into the wall, "Stay right, there, Turna'... An don' be thinkin' about grabbin' that dagger neither-" she added, "-there's more where _that _came from. Hands up, turn about!"

Will had always figured that there was a good reason Jack's entire crew, including Jack, had a healthy fear of the spirited she-pirate. She had sort of the same effect on grown men that a dog-whistle had on dogs.

She padded his clothing to make sure he was unarmed; which he was, apart from the butterknife in his pocket. Ana made quick work of filching it before leading him briskly back to his cell.

Once there, it was just a shove, a key turn, and fifteen minutes of African curses as Anamaria struggled to yank all the cutlery out of the beams and walls within arms-reach of Will's cell, before Will was back where he started. Will had to fight the natural inclination to offer to help her with the task, which she'd have probably turned down anyhow.

Of course, she'd missed one- the fork Will had used earlier was under about two inches of water, still wedged in the cuff of his manacles.

So really, he wasn't quite _all _the way back where he'd started; he could still pick the cell door's lock and be back out in a jiffy. Except on her way out Anamaria locked the hatch to the next deck up, from the topside.

At least she'd left the lantern. And the mop.

Will had to sprawl down on his chest, stretching out his arm as far as he could through the bottom holes in the bars, but still couldn't reach it. Then, he got the idea to use his handcuffs to knock the mop over. But the mop fell backwards, away from his cell, which didn't help him any. It took several more swipes, but Will finally managed to get the fork, that was still stuck in the shackles, to snag on the shaggy end of the mop, and he quickly reeled it into the cell.

He was pleased to have a mop, but now there was that minor question- _what the heck can I __do __with this? Other than clean the floor. Or the bars. Or the roof..._

Inspiration, unlike lightning, _does_ strike the same spot twice.

Will started methodically tapping the mop-handle up against the cell rafters, trying to determine where the cannons on the next deck up where located. He listened carefully to each rap, seeking any small sound differences. At last, he settled on a creaky little patch of ceiling which sounded promising.

He still couldn't wrench the fork out of the shackles, but that didn't stop him from making good use of the silverware anyway. After bending the teeth of the fork, he used it to pry out the ceiling nails right above him. Then, after shoving the two loose planks out of the way, he pulled himself up through the narrow gap, onto the deck above. Then he replaced the planks, and crept along the walls to the stairwell, ducking in and out of shadows.

He smacked into a gold birdcage hanging from the ceiling, which clanged noisily against the wall.

"Who's down there?" snapped a gruff voice, as a door above Will swung open.

A lantern flashed into view, and Will rapidly darted beneath the stairwell, holding his breath.

"Speak up!" barked the voice. Then the lantern-bearing pirate started descending the rickety stairs, his head swaying in all directions as he surveyed the room.

Will waited until the pirate's unwashed feet were right in front of him, before pulling them out from underneath him through the steps. This sent the pirate into a headlong tumble, giving Will the time to swing over the rail and race up the steps.

He didn't stop until he reached the maindeck.

The blond named Shark, who had apparently been assigned to night watch duty, was guarding the Pearl's lone jollyboat.

A distraction was in order.

Dashing over to the nearest cannon, Will hastily un-bolted it from the deck, and gave it a shove. It rolled across the deck, gaining momentum as it went, while Will un-bolted the next two cannons.

He had just finished with the fourth, when the night watch jumped up, sprinted over to the hatch, and hollered down, "All hands on deck, all hands on deck!"

Taking this as his cue to disappear, Will quickly crept towards the davits, where the solitary jollyboat hung, keeping in the shadows cast by the enormous sails above.

The three loose cannons had built up momentum aplenty by this point, and they helpfully knocked down a couple of the pirates which were sleepily trudging up through the hatches.

Also, with each sway of the ship, the cannons got that much closer to plunging through the rails, and overboard.

As Will struggled to unloose the jollyboat, he suddenly realized that the oars were missing.

_That's _when something hard and wooden collided with his cranium. The white light returned briefly, as Will hissed sharply through clenched teeth.

The oar hit him twice more, astronomically increasing the splitting pain in his head.

"Funny, that usually works..." muttered Jack disappointedly. Dropping the oar he'd hitherto been using to pummel Will's skull, he grabbed Will's arm and yanked him up and away from the davits.

"Dastardly snarge..." Will mumbled half incoherently.

"What _is _a snarge?"

"A totally unlikeable jerk," Will explained to Jack and Jack's two blurry triplets.

"Ah. Fair enough. To whom are we referring?"

Before Will could answer, the ship shuddered beneath his feet, making the world even _more_ dizzy for an instant. Following Jack's shocked gaze, he made out the outlines of three nice, gaping holes in the balustrade. The fourth cannon had been caught by the crew, and was now being rolled back in place.

"You're not leaving this ship till you've replaced all three of those," stated Jack hollowly. "Cannons, ain't, cheap."

Then he marched a very dazed Will back down the hatch and stairs.

With the help of his sleep-deprived crewmen, Jack chained Will backwards to the bars of the cell, with his wrists crossed and twisted behind him and chained outside the bars. They also wrapped a chain around one of the young blacksmith's ankles and locked it to the bars. The other ankle, the bootless one, was just tied, since they were out of cuffs.

"I _dare_ you ta get outta that," commented Jack, as he left once more, locking the hatch behind him, and (judging from the scraping sound) rolling something heavy atop it.

Well, Will wasn't one to turn down a dare. He'd prove Jack wrong. The question was, how?

Will strove to make his throbbing head stop spinning long enough to think. But all _that _accomplished was to draw his attention to the facts that his arms were wrenched painfully behind him, his bare ankle was chafing against the rusty bars, his wrists stung, his foot was stuck with splinters, and his head throbbed.

He tried looking around for any residual sparks of inspiration, but his dark curls kept falling in his face, and all he could see was an empty cell, and a freshly-boarded-up hole in the roof.

No possibilities.

_In retrospect, _Will thought, _going after that nobleman's sword was an abysmally doltish idea. For Mercury's sake, Elizabeth's __life __is in danger, and I was trifling with business etiquette! _

Trying to make himself feel a smidgeon better, Will resolved yet again to kill Jack_. Just as soon as I escape..._ After all, it was _Jack_ who'd stolen the sword in the first place. And hijacked him, preventing him from helping Elizabeth. And had him locked up here in the first place. And second place. And third place...

_But if I hadn't gone after that sword..._Will never was much good at passing on the blame.

He was distracted from the trial of thinking by a sharp pain, as a familiar passing ship-rat sampled his toe. He wanted badly to kick the vermin, but the rope tethering his ankle to the bars killed that notion. His foot simply jolted against the angular bars, leaving a nasty scrape.

However, in a stroke of luck, Will spotted the calico cat through his tangled curls. Probably, it was hoping for seconds of whatever it had been fed earlier. "Here, kitty, kitty..." Will called gently.

The calico silently padded on over, and Will shot the contentedly gnawing rat an evil half-smile.

However, the moment the calico spotted the rat, it puffed up to look twice it's size, and darted up Will's trousers, up to his arm, where it held on with all its claws, hissing and spluttering feline curses down at the unfazed rodent.

"Thanks," Will muttered cynically to his ex-accomplice.

Then he started twisting and wriggling his bare foot, trying to scare off the munching rat. The only motion he could manage was straight up and down, about an inch. It hurt like Hades, but worked.

The rat lost interest, and scampered off after a slimy cockroach that only a rat could find appealing.

Will felt something warm and wet oozing down his heel. The friction against the sharp, rusty bars had wreaked havoc on his ankle, and the stinging saltwater didn't help any. Abruptly, it occurred to Will- if the bars were sharp enough to scrape his ankle, what would they do to the rope?

After moving his tied foot up and down a single inch for a half-hour, Will finally managed to cut through the gnarled fibers of the accursed rope. His ankle probably would've been cut down to the bone, if he hadn't been pulling it away from the bars the whole time. Which left him rope-burned. You just couldn't win.

This half-hour had given him plenty of free thinking-space to decide on step two of his plan. The molasses barrel he'd snagged earlier was still loitering upright just outside his cell. It would play a crucial part.

Will stuck his free heel in and out through the bars, slowly maneuvering the barrel to under his hands. Then, he painfully jammed his hands down as far as he could. If only his arms and wrists hadn't been twisted, he _might've _been able to reach the molasses.

But he could, just barely, with his fingertips, reach the loose barrel-lid. Being oh-so-careful not to drop it, Will dipped the lid in the molasses, and then flipped it up above his wrists, so that the molasses drizzled down to the handcuffs. _Eventually._ The expression 'slow as molasses' had never seemed so inescapably clear. Will repeated the bizarre and painful procedure until his wrists were lubricated enough to slip free. After which, he managed to wrestle his other, tightly-chained foot out of its boot.

He was now free in his cell, as contradictory as that was.

It was now just a simple matter of burning the roof.

The crooked tortoiseshell clattered against the square bars, and Will made a grab for it. He managed to slip it under the door, and after drying it as much as was feasible on his shirt, he curled the coil of severed rope inside the tortoiseshell, and dumped his up-till-now forgotten cup of grog over it. Then he snagged the lantern, lit the grog-doused rope, and held the shell up to the new, dry, planks patching the ceiling.

The fire greedily consumed the rope, making Will worry that it would fizz out before ever catching onto the ceiling. But he was a blacksmith, and knew a thing or three about keeping a fire blazing. Quickly stooping down, Will collected the less drenched shards of floating wood he could find, and added them to the tortoiseshell. But the grog-fueled fire consumed them quicker than he'd thought, so Will started scavenging everything he could reach and fit through the bars to add to the tortoiseshell. This included the barrel lid, which was flat enough to slip under the door, the wooden mug which had held his grog, and even the very clean wooden plate. The ceiling planks were starting to blacken, but they hadn't caught fire yet. Then he added the thick bracing rope from outside his cell. Then the mop.

The planks above began to crackle, but too feebly for comfort. Also, the tortoiseshell was getting too hot for comfort. Reluctantly, Will slipped out of his shirt, and used that to hold the shell. It was better than getting scorched.

The cat, annoyed by being dislodged from its perch, promptly and prudently pranced off, twitching its ears and tail irritably.

Will stood holding the tortoiseshell up to the roof, ignoring the huge sparks fluttering down from overhead and catching on his neck and bare shoulders.

The mop was soon cinders. So, having exhausted all other options, Will added his boot to the dying blaze. It was good leather, and burned nice and slow, but then a funny thing happened.

The tortoiseshell started to melt.

Will watched in disbelief as the shell puddled down, welding itself to his bunched-up shirt, which he'd never be able to wear again.

_Finally_, the fire began to roar; a good and proper _roar_.

Will smiled, and once the embers in the tortoiseshell were dead, he lowered his aching arms, and stepped back to admire his handiwork.

Just when the wood was weakened enough to bash through (making Will wish he hadn't burnt the mop) the roof screeched, spluttered, and collapsed.

Had Will not ducked into a corner, he would've been buried under a hulking pile of barrels, sandbags, cannonballs, crates of rocks, and other ballast Jack had apparently put atop his cell. In the _very _unlikely event that Will tried escaping as he had last time.

It all made such a handy mound to climb up.

Once he'd pulled himself up to the next deck, Will slipped out a gunport, crawled up the outer planks of the Pearl, and lastly, let himself in through one of the glossy, unlocked windows of the captain's cabin.

Said cabin was illuminated only by the crisp moonlight creeping in through the window-glass.

Will stalked silently over to the fancy canopy bed on the far side of the cabin, huddled behind a hat-stand, a desk, and some cannons. A slender trail of blood dripped patchily from his scraped ankle.

The sword he'd foolishly risked so much on retrieving was lying on the desk, still in its sheath. Will slipped the swordbelt over his shoulder, along with a canteen of mildly rum-flavored water he also found.

There were two coats draped on the hatstand, an over-fancy green one, and Jack's old tattered grey one. Will took Jack's as he crept by, slipping his tired arms into the sleeves.

Jack was asleep, to all appearances. He was gripping two pistols, crossed over his chest like the implements of some Egyptian mummy.

Will leaned past the bedpost, and snatched the guns from Jack's loosely clenched fingers.

* * *

"Wake up," a voice hissed, as the cold metal barrel of a gun jabbed under Jack's jaw.

The pirate's eyes blinked lazily, then abruptly shot open. "Bill?" he mumbled, sounding distant and disoriented. But his confusion swiftly passed to irritation. "Oh, and I _did_ have this _fabulous _speech planned that went something like, 'Ha! You didn't think I'd really fall asleep, did you?'- but I take it that's all a tad bit moot now, right?" Jack guessed aloud.

"Get up," Will ordered.

Jack, however, was not done rambling. "Eiver yer here, in which case this is a nightmare, or yer not here, an' I'm just asleep, which I swore I would not be- in which case, this is still a nightmare."

"Shut up."

_Why does he smell like burnt molasses?_ the pirate wondered, as he pried himself up on an elbow. He held up two fingers and, waving them disorientingly in front of Will's face, said, "There can only be two reasons you haven't shot me yet. One, you're afraid somone'll hear the shot. Two, you need me alive..." He was hoping for two.

"Or maybe I just don't want the Pearl catching me the moment I escape again," Will countered. "Then again, maybe I'm just concerned your lousy antique flintlock will backfire."

Jumping at the chance, Jack agreed swiftly, "Yes, it does indeed have that tendency. It's really no good for anything short of decoration. Put it away, why don't you, before you blow your head off, there's a good lad. Kids like you really shouldn't play wiv guns-" Jack abruptly interrupted his ramblings to holler, _"HELP!"_

_"FIRE!"_ Will added.

Jack's slouched back went rigid. "What do you mean, fire?"

_"Fire in the hold! All hands below!" _a voice, Mr. Rigley's, probably- it was his watch- shouted from the belly of the ship.

_"Buckets, men, buckets!" _

_"Oh, where the hell_ _are the buckets?"_

Jack stared at Will in thunderstruck horror. "Oh, you _didn't_..."

"In my defense, I did ask first."

"Stop stealin' all me good lines!" Jack snarled back. "P.S.: you will DIE for that. The fire that is. Though I'm sure I'll think of some way to get back at you for the line-stealing too."

Will yanked Jack up by the arm, and pressed the pistol hard against his ribs from behind.

"Oh, that tickles!" was Jack's first response, even if it wasn't his intended one.

_"Move."_

"Sorry, was that _your_ foot I was stepping on?" Jack lightly lifted his heeled boot (yes, he slept in his boots) off of Will's bare and oddly bleeding foot. The blood was making a ghastly stain, and Jack was about to complain, when Will jabbed the gun into his side again, harder. "Right, right, moving- see, this is me, moving, alright?"

"Fine," Will commented quietly, "where are the oars?"

"Oh, there are no oars," Jack quickly lied.

"Yeah right," Will shot back.

"Then again, maybe we could work something out. How 'bout, two oars, for my two pistols?"

_"Where_ are they, Jack?" Will menaced, remembering to cock the pistol.

"Oh yes, that's a good idea," Jack commented snarkily. "You're new at this, I gather?"

"No, I _regularly _kidnap people. For the _fun_ of it. Every Friday night."

"Run out of sarcasm yet?"

"Where are the _dang oars?"_

"Don't expect ta get any help from me," Jack countered smugly.

"Speak up," Will demanded, all but bristling now.

"Now, easy, easy mate, no clenched fists when yer finger's on the trigger, yes? Dead cats don't mew, right?"

Will's sharp eyes happened to spot about an inch of shiny wood sticking out from under Jack's mattress. Still training the gun on the pirate captain, Will took a step back to the mattress, and retrieved the badly-hidden oars.

_Dang, _Jack thought acidly. "How do you bloody well spot these things?" he complained.

"Really Jack, _under the bed_?" Will queried cynically.

Jack managed a shrug, before being briskly shoved out the curtain doorway and onto the moonlit deck.

"Lemme guess," said Jack dourly as they reached the davits, "this is the 'you kill me, I'm dead and you leave' part?"

"Not quite," Will replied. "Yet," he added. "Climb in, Jack."

"And if I don't?" Jack posed.

Will raised the pistol to eye-level at Jack's face.

"Just checking!" the pirate captain hastily responded. Sulkily, Jack obeyed, and Will climbed in after him, never turning his back for a second. Jack lowered the jollyboat toward the sloshing waves, and with the shove of an oar, they were off.

Jack did have an escape plan, but it hinged on Will letting him do the rowing.

Which of course, Will didn't. Either Will was craving some physical exercise, or he was just a tad smarter than Jack had hoped. The whelp sat at the stern so he could man the oars (which he obviously didn't want Jack _anywhere_ near), and he had Jack sit with his back to him at the bow, with his shifty hands in plain sight.

The brace of pistols were on Will's lap, still cocked and at the ready.

As they paddled farther and farther from the Pearl, Jack cautiously fidgeted with a shiny bauble tied in his hair, which was actually a tiny mirror on one side. So he kept an eye on Will too, awaiting just the right time to make a grab for his pistols. But just the right time never came.

For one instant he thought he had a chance, when a lucky seagull swooped down by Will's ear, making the lad turn his head briefly.

Too briefly.

Jack darted a grab at his pistols, but Will had them both up and in his face before his fingers touched the burnished metal. "Don't you ever _blink_?" Jack growled.

Will's eyes looked more dangerous than the two gunbarrels Jack was staring down, and the smith continued not blinking.

"I was just going to offer ta take a turn rowing," Jack smoothly lied.

"No."

That was about as much as Jack could get Will to say for the next few minutes.

The Pearl was shrinking into the distance most disturbingly...

Some while later, Jack broke the silence yet again. "Out ta save Elizabef again, eh?" he inquired. "Just like old times?"

"What do you mean 'old times'?" Will snapped. "It was scarcely four days ago!"

Jack congratulated himself on getting Will to say more than two words put together. 'Elizabeth' was the magic word- sort of like, 'Open Sesame'.

"Besides, you made a promise- a promise, Jack," Will went on. "You said you'd never return to Port Royal."

It was Jack's turn for wordlessness. "Umm..."

Without warning, one of the wet oars flew out of the water and knocked Jack out of the jollyboat.

Jack's really excellent insult was choked off by an unhealthy amount of saltwater pouring down his throat, as a nasty wave crashed over his head. When he resurfaced and swiped enough stinging saltwater and wet dreadloocks out of his eyes, Jack saw that Will was still watching his patch of sea, as he rowed off.

Jack wasted no time on pleas, curses, insults, or anything else besides paddling back in the opposite direction, towards the Pearl.

She was smoking, but the sails looked intact, and there didn't seem to be any uncontrollably raging orange flames shooting up on deck, so that was a good sign.

All told, the damage was less than he'd thought it would be. The hull was still whole. But it was the principle of the thing.

"Cap'n, what're ya out swimmin' at this hour fer?" Jack heard through his water-clogged ears, as he struggled up over the rail, and collapsed on deck, breathing heavily. "You'll catch yer death!"

Jack glanced scathingly up at his concerned quartermaster. "No one even noticed I was gone, did they?"

Gibbs opened his mouth to reply, but before he got a word in, the midget Marty darted into view, yelping,

"Cap'n, prisoner's escaped!"

"Since you are so _bright_ Mr. Marty, go light every lamp, candle and torch on the Pearl!" Jack commanded.

"And that's no small task," added the hulking Mr. Inkbeard jestingly.

Marty shot his crewmate a viperous scowl, then scurried off.

Jack heaved himself up to his knees, and pointed over the rail in the general direction he had come from. "Follow that rowboat!" he ordered loudly.

Drowsy pirates, tired already from chasing cannons, heaving buckets, and dousing flames, grumbled as they pulled the ropes. The Pearl creaked around to starboard, and sailed alee, with the wind at their backs. With the sea illumed by lamps, candles, and torchlight, the pirates had a better chance of spotting the runaway jollyboat.

Needless to say, the fastest ship in the Caribbean caught up quick.

"Oh come now, Will, you honestly thought you could out-_row_ the Black Pearl?" Jack called down.

Will was _still_ rowing.

Jack wordlessly picked up a stray cannonball, and dropped it over the rail. It crashed through Will's jollyboat with a satisfying splintery sound, tossing up an pretty little spout of seawater. Will finally stopped rowing, and looked up in total disbelief.

"There are but two things that really matter-" Jack began impressively, now that he had Will's attention.

"Oh, not the 'two things that really matter' speech again..." he heard the blacksmith mutter.

"Alright, lemme put it this way- eiver you climb aboard now, or-"

"I think I'll sink, thanks all the same," Will called up rebelliously.

"Actually," Jack informed the frantically bailing blacksmith, "we _do_ have spare nets."

"So in other words," Will deduced flatly, "you're not really giving me any choice at all."

"Nah, just the prospect of escape. Not actual escape, as such."

"Figures."

Turned out that, rather than submit to the indignity of being netted up like a fish again, Will just climbed the rope ladder Jack tossed down to him.

Once he stepped over the rail though, Will pulled out Jack's two pistols.

Jack had been expecting this, and promptly threw the bucket of water he was holding in Will's face, dampening the gunpowder.

"Shoot," Will cursed, when the pistols didn't.

Jack had Will chained to the mast in his cabin, and decided to, for the rest of the night, watch the pesky escapee personally. Since Will wasn't much for conversation, Jack fished up a messy deck of cards from his drawer, and decided to teach the smith a thing or two about how to _actually_ win at gambling.

Or at least Will could watch _him_ win.


	11. The Governor's Daughter

=Chapter 11: The Governor's Daughter=

* * *

The official report on the events of last night wasn't particularly helpful. Various townsfolk had reported various oddities: strange noises last night, rapping on rooftops (which was widely thought to be a thunderstorm, even though no one could recall thunder), the sound of steel, a missing ladder, shadowy figures disappearing around street corners, etc, etc, and so forth. Nothing unusual- especially not on Will's side of town.

The point was, _something_ stranger than regular had occurred in Port Royal last night, even if no one cared a jot. Except for the governor's daughter, who was reaching the point of obsession in trying to figure out what went on, and where her missing fiance- to-be... hopefully- was.

Her painstaking, dead-end investigations over the past two days had left her in a pessimistic temper. So, when her father's ridiculous mutt Piranha escaped late that night, when Elizabeth was letting in the cat, since Estrella was too busy caring for the mystery baby, and when Elizabeth charged after Piranha, charging after the cat, and wound up halfway across Port Royal, at the beach, she wasn't expecting much. Certainly, she wasn't expecting to find the crooked drag marks left in the sand, leading to the turtle docks, nor the blood-stains on the dock's planks. There was a lone securing rope tied to a mooring post, but with no boat attached. Elizabeth fingered the rope up out of the water, and brushed her fingertips over the bristly fibers at the end of it. Someone had cut it. Someone was in a hurry to leave… _recently_. Someone with a knife. Which may or may not have been the cause of the blood.

Why would someone want to leave so quickly that they couldn't even be bothered to properly untie a rope? _Perhaps someone being chased by a guilty conscience, _Elizabeth speculated. _Perhaps someone like __Jack__, who, eschewing responsibility, abandoned his own son in a sink. And then stole Will. _Apparently. And maybe there was a struggle, as the blood stains seemed to indicate. So maybe Will _hadn't _gone willingly. That was both comforting and terrifying.

The 'why' of the abduction was still undetermined, but Elizabeth figured that it was probably a blow calculated solely to make her miserable. It was Jack's revenge for her burning the rum, or for jilting him on the island that night, she just knew it. Why did he have to be such a rum-swilling, unreasonable, bloody pirate? She knew the answer to that one too. Because that was _just _the way he liked it. _Oh __why __didn't I just let father hang him? _She wondered irritably. Sure, Will may have felt a little bad about Jack's demise, but he'd have gotten over it, especially after he had married her and they were deep into the process of living happily ever after.

Elizabeth's dreamy fantasies of her future with Will were interrupted by Piranha's angry barking. The little black hound was excitably jealous that the cat knew how to climb palm trees with ease. Creeping up on the dog from behind, Elizabeth managed to snatch her by a hind leg, and then got a hold of an ear, and finally managed to scoop the kicking, wriggling pooch up into her arms. Piranha started insanely licking Elizabeth's face, and kept glancing back and forth between the cat and Elizabeth, as if it expected Elizabeth would solve the problem of the cat being able to climb.

It was at that awkward instant that Elizabeth heard low, muffled voices to her right. She whirled around, pricking her bare heel on a sharp shell. Squinting through the dusky blackness, Elizabeth made out a small band of shadows hurrying across the sand. From the tone of their voices, they were evidently men. Remembering that she was wearing nothing but her bloomers, nightshift, and cap, Elizabeth jumped behind the palm tree, which startled the cat into a hissing fit. Piranha whimpered, as Elizabeth clamped shut her drooling mouth, to keep her from barking out a witty comeback to the insulting feline.

As the men drew closer to the shoreline, Elizabeth heard a new, chilling sound- the cry of a baby. She immediately thought of the foundling she'd rescued from the sink yesterday. But that was silly. She'd left him at the mansion with her maid Estrella, who was probably still fussing over him.

"Please, it's not me you want! I'm just a maid in the governor's house, I'm no one!"

_Estrella? _Elizabeth thought bleakly. Yes, her voice was too familiar.

"Gag it, lady!" growled one of the shadowy men. "You think we're simple sailors who'd fall fer anything, eh? Where's the Isla de Muerta?"

"I already told you, I've no clue! Not a notion!"

"Well, maybe you'd like to tell that to the captain, and see how he takes it."

"At least spare the babe! Please, a ship is no place for an infant! It goes against the Pirate Code!"

Yes, it was most definitely, incontrovertibly, Estrella. Elizabeth knew that only _her _maids were so well-versed on such piratical subjects.

"Stow it," another man hissed sharply. "_High tide_ is no place for a baby either, and that's where we'll leave it if I hear another word from you, get it?"

Apparently, she did, since the only sound left was the waves, and the wind, and the infant's soft wails.

Elizabeth's head was racing, her first thought was to run for help, but the men were already on the move, heading for the main docks, and they'd be gone long before she could return with the night watch. She could scream, that's what she usually did. But _that _rarely helped. She could always just follow them. Which would be immensely easier if she wasn't lugging a whiny, groaning, kicking, pooch with her. But it would be far riskier to let Piranha go. Piranha had this awful habit of imitating a foghorn when she was excitable. Which was always.

The docks were eerily empty. _Oh, where are the dock guard officers when you actually __need __them?_ Elizabeth snarled in her head- and immediately wished she hadn't, as the ebbing tide revealed a pale face and bright red coat under it's shallow waves. Elizabeth stuck Piranha's snout under the crook of her arm before the dog could see the corpse, but the critter could probably tell something was wrong from Elizabeth's quivering knees and thumping heart. Elizabeth cautiously peered up from where she stood on the lower docks, through the planks to the upper level.

The strange men were roughly guiding Estrella into one of three skiffs bobbing at the dockside. And the thought that her maid and new-found baby were in the hands of such callous men made Elizabeth's stomach turn. And what of Will? Had he gotten in the way of these men? Had they killed him and disposed of his body in the bay as they had the dock guard? But then how was Jack involved? _Was_ Jack involved? More immediately, how was she going to be able to follow her maid's kidnappers now? She couldn't very well swim with the four-legged land-piranha, and if she let the pooch go it'd run and bark and give her away.

She stood there baffled for a little over three moments, till she remembered the severed rope she'd gotten from the small, blood-stained dock. _Brilliant!_

Piranha didn't think it was so 'brilliant', and expressed her displeasure by wriggling like a worm on a hook, and gnawing Elizabeth's wrists as she tied the rope around her drooling jaws, and around her furry neck.

"It's for your own good," Elizabeth whispered, as she tied the other end of the rope to one of the dock's supporting beams.

Piranha whimpered, gave an abused expression, and sank down mournfully on her shaggy belly.

Elizabeth wasted no time nor pity on the pooch, and quietly slipped into the water. She started frog-paddling under the waves, poking her nose and lips up occasionally to catch her breath, till her head lightly bumped into the last of the three skiffs leaving the dock. She snaked a hand up, and subtly slipped her fingers over the rim of the small boat. Then someone shoved off with an oar, that just barely missed hitting into her ducked head.

Mere moments later, Piranha wriggled triumphantly free of her rope muzzle, and made a flying, paddling leap into the skiff Elizabeth was stowing away on- or under, to be precise.

"Dagnabit!" one of the surprised sailors cursed.

"Hey, put that snaplock away, ye dolt!" another hissed sharply. "It's jus' a puppy-dog!"

Piranha let off three joyful barks, and was starting on a fourth, before someone obviously grabbed her muzzle.

"Hush, hush now, puppy, Daddy's got ya. There's a good missy."

"He won't let you keep it, ya know."

"Maybe if I do double watch duty?"

"Triple, at the least. And scrape the barnacles off the anchors."

"Well, she's a pretty thing, maybe I can sell 'er to someone in the next port, leastways. Where is the next port?"

"Caymans, I think, lest we can get Miss Govnor's spawn to talk. Or 'nless the cap'n has changed his mind again."

Elizabeth silently prayed that Piranha, or the sailors, for that matter, didn't spot her white-knuckled fingers latched onto the skiff. Taking a calming breath, she let herself be carried along through the currents, toward an uncertain fate.


End file.
